RIO DE JANEIRO, October 16. /TASS/. Brazil has scaled down the prices of pork intended for exports to Russia from October 2014, the vice president of the Brazilian Association of Animal Protein (ABRA), Rui Eduardo Saldanha Vargas, said on Thursday.

He said prices were revised in September at the request of the Russian authorities and importers, going down, in some cases even by half. Earlier, Russian pork importers said Brazilian suppliers raised release prices of pork for Russia after it had imposed a food embargo on some Western countries following Western sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.

In mid-August prices grew up to $6.95-7.3 per kilo, participants in the market noted, linking it to the fact that Brazil remained the only major pork supplier to Russia amid the war of sanctions.

Eduardo Saldanha Vargas said in three months Brazil was ready to increase monthly supplies of pork to Russia to 25,000 tons. He also said Brazilian swine producers had agreed to give up on the use of banned in Russia ractopamine, which was the cause of Russia’s ban on pork imports from Brazil in 2011. Supplies were restarted in March 2014.

In September, 17,000 tons of Brazilian pork worth $87.8 million was supplied to Russia, 20% more than in August. Russia accounted in September for 39.6% of all Brazilian pork exports. Hong Kong was the second-biggest market for Brazilian pork in September.

Russia came under Western sanctions, originally visa bans and asset freezes, for incorporation of Crimea in mid-March after a coup in Ukraine in February. Later, Western claims that Russia was taking part in hostilities in southeast Ukraine, which Moscow repeatedly denied, resulted in more serious, sectoral, restrictions.

In response, Moscow imposed on August 6 a one-year ban on imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, cheeses, fruit, vegetables and dairy products from Australia, Canada, the EU, the United States and Norway.