Russia allows Turkish imports with good quality record automatically

BYKOVO, Moscow Region, May 25 (PRIME) -- Russia will automatically open access to its market to Turkish products of a quality which has never been questioned by the Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight Service, head of the authority Sergei Dankvert said on Thursday.

“The government opens (access) automatically for things which were not under our (veterinary watchdog’s) sanctions. If the government opened and we had no objections, we do not go (to Turkey to survey the quality), we go only to see products where we had had some claims,” Dankvert said.

He said that six Turkish full-cycle agricultural companies have passed checks by the Russian authority and are eligible for a permit to ship to Russia.

“The checks are over, we have not summarized, we are preparing the materials. I can only say preliminarily that not all companies are able to be fully responsible for their products. Preliminarily, six companies which are full-cycle and can track their products from field to end,” Dankvert said.

He said that Russia will allow imports from only large suppliers and can consider allowing even tomato imports if this condition is met “we cannot come back to a situation when a hundred farmers yield a tonne of tomatoes and we cannot find the one to blame.”

On Wednesday, Head of the Turkish agricultural exporters’ association Zekeriya Mete said that the Turkish agricultural exporters’ association had introduced imports quotas. Russia should account only for 20–25% of all issued licenses for imports of wheat for domestic processing, which gives the right for duty-free imports.

The Turkish Economy Ministry denies that such restrictions are taking place.

Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia and Turkey have retained some of trade restrictions and are negotiating their abolishment.

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