Emsis promises to get to bottom of Latvian beef

  • 2004-09-29
  • From wire reports
RIGA - Suspicious contraband and fraudulent EU export subsidy schemes are the main culprits behind Latvia's surprisingly low beef prices, Prime Minister Indulis Emsis said last week. He promised a full probe into the market in the next three weeks.

Emsis made his announcement following beef producers' complaints about the low prices, among the lowest in the EU, which have caused an uproar and led to finger-pointing at VP Market, the Lithuanian retailer that imports large quantities of Lithuanian beef to the Latvian market.

After a meeting with the Latvian Agricultural Organization Cooperation Council, Emsis said that there was no clear reason for the situation. Nevertheless, he said, "I think that we are witnessing a scheme in which an EU member state imports meat that's meant for a third country. Then, after getting EU export subsidies, the beef is sold for a very low price" here in Latvia.

"Not only is this contraband, but it is also fraud with subsidies," the prime minister added.

According to Emsis, local meat processing companies could be involved in this scheme. Otherwise it wouldn't work very long, he said.

"I think we'll find the illegal scheme in three weeks' time," he said.

But representatives of the agricultural organization council were less optimistic.

As of August, beef prices had dropped by 0.15 euro 's 0.45 euro per kilo. Experts believe that there is no legitimate reason for the price cut and are therefore pointing to contraband schemes as the logical explanation.

Beef in Latvia costs around 159 euros per 100-culled kilograms. In Greece, for example, the corresponding price is approximately 370 euros.

The Latvian Meat Cattle Breeding Association reported earlier in the month that the average purchase price for culled beef has fallen from 1.1 lats (1.65 euros) per kilogram at the end of July to 0.95 lat on Aug. 30. By comparison, Lithuanian meat cost only 1.2 euros per kilogram.

Agricultural Market Promotion Center head Inguna Gulbe said, "The Lithuanians are mixing up the whole market now," adding that there is no solution to the problem yet.

Curiously, last week it was announced that a large shipment of illegal meat from India was seized by Baltic and German veterinary services.

Latvian Food and Veterinary Service director Vinets Veldre said the shipment of buffalo-meat filets through European ports to St. Petersburg had been arranged by an offshore company registered in Dubai, though Australia was cited as the country of origin in the documents. But German veterinary inspectors at the Hamburg port discovered that the documents were phony.

The EU has prohibited meat imports from India because of frequent occurrences of cattle diseases there.

According to the Latvian veterinary chief, 36 containers (each containing about 40 tons of meat) were seized at the Hamburg port, 20 containers at the Port of Tallinn and two containers at Klaipeda Port.

So far no illegal meat has been shipped to Latvia, but there were reportedly plans to send 23 containers to Riga from Hamburg, and that a Latvian company was to make transport arrangements.