* Search for alternative suppliers may take time
* Compromise may be reached on chlorine residue content
* U.S. import halt to stimulate domestic production rise
By Aleksandras Budrys
MOSCOW, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Russia's poultry meat sector hopes talks next week will find a compromise over Moscow's new food safety rules that threaten to halt the current large imports of U.S. chicken because it is treated with chlorine.
Otherwise Russians will have to laboriously arrange to find other sources of supply.
"Alternatives may be found," Andrei Teriokhin, head of the Russian Poultry Market Operators' Association, told Reuters.
"There are major producers like Brazil, the European Union, Argentina, Canada, Turkey and Thailand." But, he said, this may disrupt the market and prove to be time consuming.
Technical experts headed by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Undersecretary Jim Miller and Russian consumer protection watchdog Rospotrebnadzor Gennady Onishchenko are scheduled to hold talks in Moscow on meat safety on Jan. 19 and 20.
Rospotrebnadzor imposed from Jan. 1 a ban on poultry meat treated with chlorine, a process commonly used in the United States. This threatened to halt U.S. poultry exports to Russia, that were worth $800 million in 2008.
Sergei Yushin, head of another Russian lobby group, the National Meat association, said there were countries that could increase poultry meat production rapidly and ship it to Russia.
"But they will do it only if they receive guarantees that their products will be bought," he added without elaborating.
Under a tariff quota used by Russia to regulate imports the United States is entitled to ship 600,000 tonnes of poultry meat this year at a discounted import tariff.
On Thursday, Moscow said it will allow imports of poultry meat cleared by the customs before Jan. 19.. It also said alternative sources of supply may be found, should Washington fail to observe the new rules.
COMPROMISE POSSIBLE
Teriokhin does not expect the United States to exclude chlorine washes from poultry processing to meet the Russian standards. But he said a compromise was possible over the estimate of the chlorine residue content.
"U.S. products should correspond to Russian safety standards, while the Russian side should present its demands to the products and not to their production process. When there is a wish, there is hope of a compromise."
The outcome of the talks will depend on experts' estimate of possible risks presented by chlorine in poultry meat, Yushin said.
"Compromises may only be reached on the basis of demands and standards based on science," he said. "If we put on a scale the market situation and human health, I believe health will prove to be more important."
Leading Russian meat producer Cherkizovo said it was not afraid of a poultry meat deficit if U.S. exports halted.
"We cheer the Russian government decision, which stimulates domestic production development to the benefit of consumers," Sergei Mikhailov, Cherkizovo's CEO said in an emailed note.
He said that Cherkizovo has stopped using chlorine in its production process several years ago and was rapidly increasing output while other domestic producers do the same. (Additional reporting by Maria Plis, editing by Anthony Barker)