Eastern European meat industries are scrambling as member nations of the Customs Union have entered what experts are referring to as a ‘meat war’. The country of Belarus is urgently trying to redirect its products to alternate markets and producers in that country may lose up to 50% of their profits because of a recent ban on meat exports to Russia and Ukraine. Last year Belarus exported more than 100,000 animals to Russia with a value of US$24.6 million and 60,000 tons of pork valued at US$217.2 million. Finding alternate markets that can absorb such volume is near impossible. Experts assert that the reasons behind the ban are purely political. One month ago Ukraine banned shipments of pork from Belarus as Belarus is Russia’s main ally in the Customs Union creating a scandal to which Russia responded by initiating a meat ban of their own. At the same time, Russia has lifted a nearly two year ban on meat imports from Lithuania with signs of increasing meat imports to be accepted from the Baltic States in the near future.
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