Russian chicken companies are “working hard” to boost exports after increasing domestic output, according to Sergey Yushin, head of Russia’s National Meat Association in a Bloomberg news report from Moscow. Chicken exports could reach 300,000 metric tons by 2020, Yushin said in an interview last week. Russia’s exports were 50,000 tons last year or 11 percent of the 2.75 million tons domestically produced. Chicken production has almost doubled in five years, USDA reported. Russia’s imports of poultry may total 520,000 tons in 2013, about half the total in 2008, according to USDA.

“Domestic companies are working hard to organize Russian poultry exports to southeastern Asia and Islamic countries in the Middle East and North Africa,” Yushin said. Chicken producers plan to boost production by 29 percent by 2020 to 4.5 million tons, liveweight, Yushin said. In 2012, Russia imported 588,622 tons of U.S. chicken meat, the second biggest buyer after Mexico, according to USDA data.