Per-capita meat consumption in Russia grew by 12.5% up to 63 kilograms in 2008 compared to 2007, according to Meat Russia. It reports the comments of Viktor Zubkov, the First Deputy Chairman of Russian government, at a meeting on 1 February on the implementation of an industrial programme called 'On Meat Production Development in the Russian Federation in 2009-2012'.

Mr Zubkov called meat production growth rate optimistic. "For the last three years this rate reached 13.5 per cent and 6.5 per cent in 2008. Poultry and pork production growth totalled to 15 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively. In 2006-2008, the growth rate of domestic meat production exceeded imports almost two-fold," he reported.

With state support, 22 new and 63 reconstructed broiler production facilities as well as 82 new and 80 reconstructed pork production plants were put into operation in 2008.

Nevertheless, the Prime Minister warned that the current economic situation will require the implementation of new and already started investment projects on poultry and pork complex construction to be kept under control.

Special attention will be paid to increasing the efficiency of breeding livevstcok supplied by Rosagroleasing, continued the report.

The issues on efficiency of state support and subsidising credit interest rates were also discussed during the meeting.