Russia plans big dairy export push

Russia plans to grow its presence in the global dairy products market by increasing supplies by 15-20% annually with a big push into Arab countries - especially Algeria - and southeast Asia, the head of industry lobby group Soyuzmoloko told Reuters. "Annually, the Russian dairy industry can show export growth rates of about 15-20%, but it is not excluded that the growth can go exponentially under the right conditions," Artem Belov said. "If we are talking about a long-term perspective of seven to 10 years, we can increase supplies many times over." Russia's annual dairy exports are now worth $400 million, or about 1% of a global market estimated at more than $40 billion, he said. The country officially stopped publishing dairy export statistics this year, but 2023 data show it doubled whey exports that year and increased the supply of milk powder by 4.7 times. The biggest buyers until now have been Kazakhstan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Armenia - countries that were once ...