Russians already hurt by Western food import ban
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/08/13/russia-western-food-import-ban-sanctions-kraine/13999577/
MOSCOW
- Russians are already paying a price - literally - for the ban on food
imports from Europe and the United States that Russia imposed last week
to retaliate for American and European economic sanctions.Suppliers
and consumers are facing shortages and price hikes on staples such as
fish and fruit, as well as gourmet items such as Italian Parmesan and
French Brie cheese.Suppliers have raised prices for some fish by
20-36%, one of Russia's biggest retailers, X5 Retail Group, complained
to Russia's government, the Kommersant business daily reported on
Wednesday. Suppliers reported shortages and higher prices for fruit,
retailers braced for milk prices to go up, and some meat suppliers were
engaging in price speculation, Kommersant reported."I was
at the market, you can already see there's no Polish apples, and prices
for berries have (gone up)," said Vladlen Maksimov, head of the
Inter-regional Union of Entrepreneurs, a Russian group that includes
small businesses and retailers.The economic warfare began as an
attempt by the United States and European Union to use sanctions to
deter Russia from aiding ethnic Russian separatists fighting for
autonomy in eastern Ukraine.Russia is one of the world's leading
importers of food, and its ban on fruit, meat, poultry, fish and milk
products is hurting European suppliers. (The U.S. exports much less food
to Russia.) But the ban is also hurting Russians who have acquired a
taste in recent years for imported European products.Although
fears of empty shelves reminiscent of chronic food shortages during the
Soviet era have not materialized, some hoarding has been reported in the
media, such as people buying up all the cases of imported cheese they
could get. Consumers found empty shelves at a number of discount stores
on the outskirts of Moscow, where clerks said some customers were buying
out of panic.Moscow authorities announced Wednesday that
retailers would be required to provide lists of their current imported
stock and when they expected to sell it, the pro-government Izvestia daily newspaper reported. It said police would raid stores found to be carrying banned goods that were not disclosed.Ian
Zilberkweit, president of the Nash Xleb Bakery Group, which has a chain
of cafes across Moscow and St. Petersburg, said the ban will force his
business to look for other suppliers for his company's dairy and fruit
products, though some, like Grana Padano and Brie cheeses, are
irreplaceable."We're going to have to switch in the next 10 days
either to Russian or Belorussian dairy products," he said. "The taste is
going to be a bit different."Russia's Central Bank warned last
week that the sanctions are likely to increase an already rising
inflation rate. Even so, Russia's government has pledged that prices
will not go up as a result of the import ban, promising that the Federal
Anti-Monopoly Service will check reports of suppliers raising prices.In the worst case, the government could resort to price controls, Kommersant reported.
Russia's
state-owned media have touted the import ban as a boon for local
industry. They have claimed the ban will harm European businesses,
forcing Europe to rethink the energy and financial sanctions it imposed
on Russia last month over its aid to Ukrainian insurgency.So far,
the public strongly supports the food ban. According to a poll released
by the Levada Center last week, 82% of Russians supported some form of
retaliatory sanctions, and 76% supported the ban on imported fruit."This
import ban is a good thing because it will force the government to
start improving its own industry," said Yelena Fadeyeva, a store clerk
in the Moscow region.
Local
industry may not be able to take up the slack, however. "Russian
producers have a number of problems," Vladlen Maksimov, the head of the
Inter-regional Union of Entrepreneurs said. "One of them is lack of
proper storage equipment. It's not that we can't produce the food, it's
that we can't store it. Polish apples picked in August, stored
adequately, are sold for 11 months. Our apples can't keep."Prominent
nationalist commentators have ridiculed those complaining about the
import ban as pampered middle-class consumers who have developed an
elitist taste for foreign cheese and prosciutto.In response, some Russians say the ban interferes with their personal freedom, not their personal tastes."It's
not just about what we can and can't eat. I'd like to understand who
exactly is going to benefit from this import ban," said Sonya Sokolova,
who heads an online music site, "because it looks like this will be bad
for everybody."
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