UPDATE 2: Belarusian Ag Min invites chief Russian veterinarian to Minsk

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MINSK, Mar 6 (PRIME) – Belarus' Agriculture and Food Minister Leonid Zayats has invited Director of Russia’s Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight Service Sergei Dankvert to Minsk to improve relations in food trade, he told PRIME in an interview released on Monday.

On February 3, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko offered to start a criminal case against Dankvert over a prohibition of imports of beef from the Minsk Region and restricted imports from numerous plants producing other food.

“With pleasure I want to invite both Dankvert and the agriculture minister to mend our relations in the area of food supplies to the markets of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Belarus. We will meet with him gladly, show our facilities, tell him everything. Don’t we need to meet, to agree on things?” Zayats said.

He also said that Belarus will guarantee Dankvert’s safety.

Zayats said that Russia falsifies some Belorussian products, making bad analogues which casts a shade on the entire Belarusian agriculture.

Moscow and Minsk plan to discuss the problems in March, although Moscow has not replied so far to a proposal to hold a food meeting on Friday, March 10, Zayats said.

Trade volumes for 2017 between the states were preliminarily confirmed at the 2016 level in 2017.

Spokeswoman for the Russian Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight Service Yulia Melano said that Dnakvert will not go to Belarus.

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