UPDATE3: Minister: Russia plans no ban on all Belarus dairy imports

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MOSCOW/MINSK, Jun 22 (PRIME) -- Russian has no plans to ban all dairy imports from Belarus and to decrease the volume, Agriculture Minister Alexander Tkachyov told reporters on Wednesday.

“We have a deficit of milk in Russia and it will be quite difficult for us to do without Belarus, and I will stress once more – such an issue is not considered,” Tkachyov said.

“We notified particular companies about particular problems, they will solve them in the nearest future and return to the Russian market,” the minister said.

“In general, Russia imports milk and dairy products and no one plans to limit the volume.”

Russia’s Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight said in a statement that it may fully ban supplies of dairy products from Belarus due to problems with their quality and security.

During a meeting with Belarusian officials, the watchdog’s Director Sergei Dankvert cited certain examples of dry milk supplies from Belarus which did not comply with technical requirements of the Customs Union.

The watchdog will have to ban dairy product supplies from Belarus entirely or from certain enterprises if such violations are repeated, it said.

Alexei Bogdanov, a department director at Belarus’ Ministry of Agriculture and Food, told PRIME that Belarus had not received any claims over quality of its dairy products from Russia.

Claims over the quality of supplies are probably caused by enterprises that falsify Belarusian brands on the Russian territory, Bogdanov said.

“Some enterprises on the Russian territory, whole plants buy Belarusian quality dry milk, mix it with something, for instance, with whey, and thus decrease the cost of products,” he said.

“We have launched an additional probe, but I can declare that Belarus is not involved in falsification, and only quality dairy products are produced on the territory of Belarus,” he said.

In 2016, Russia already received over 304,000 tonnes of dairy products from Belarus, including over 56,000 tonnes of dry milk products.

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