The population’s buying power is decreasing, and in the nearest future people won’t be able to purchase pork and beef as much as they used to, the demand will shift to cheaper chicken meat, reports MeatRussia.com.

Poultry breeding sector has more opportunities for growth. Pursuant to the assessment of “Express-Obzor”, poultry production output will grow by 11.8 per cent in 2009. Thereat, red meat production will be down 6 per cent.

Within the conditions of economic downturn, meat production sector development will directly depend on state support of agriculture. In 2009, the Government subsidized 866 million rubles in crediting of agricultural enterprises within the frames of national project “Agricultural Complex” development.

The following problems can be specified as the serious ones for meat industry: shortage of facilities for meat processing, increase of production costs due to feed price growth for the first 10 months of 2008, and dependence on imports. According to results of 2008 imported product share will total to about one-third of Russian meat market.