Lifting of restrictions on food supplies to Turkey includes Russian grain - Dvorkovich
SOCHI. May 3 (Interfax) - The lifting of restrictions on food supplies to Turkey includes Russian grain, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich told journalists following talks between the Russian and Turkish presidents.
"We agreed on a comprehensive solution, that all individual restrictions are lifted on both sides," he said, clarifying that "all sectoral restrictions connected with specific industries, labor and agricultural production, except tomatoes, will be lifted."
"The same applies to the Turkish side. Primarily, the Turkish restrictions on Russian wheat, sunflower oil and a number of other goods," he said.
But there are subtleties regarding the timing, when and what will be done, "because some things can be done in a day, other things in a week and others still in a month," Dvorkovich said. "But on the whole, all restrictions apart from the general visa requirements and a special agreement on tomatoes, which still has to be reached, are being lifted," he said.
"For grain, I reiterate, we are hoping for restrictions to be lifted in the next few days. Just as we, synchronously, will lift all restrictions on the same day. The timing might be staggered somewhere, but not by much," he said.
"As for tomatoes, we cannot cancel the restrictions in the nearest future, but there are options for making this regime more flexible," he said.
"Firstly, we know that there are already Turkish tomatoes on our market. They are imported via other countries. Not in the same volumes as previously, but they are there," he said. "Secondly, we have periods in the course of the year when there is a shortage on the market and we have to import a substantial portion of tomatoes all the same. But even in this period, there are Russian producers and it is important that prices don't fall too far. In order to maintain their margins at a sufficient level. Overall, on average for the year."
A discussion with the partners is planned on "how to make it so that in being present on our market on a temporary basis, prices remain nonetheless acceptable for both consumers and producers," Dvorkovich said. "There are of course such mechanisms, including those associated with duties," he said.
"In addition, we agreed that our agricultural and phytosanitary monitoring services will act synchronously to lift their restrictions. For example, access for Russian meat and dairy products to the Turkish market and access for individual Turkish product categories to our market," he said.
"Even when the embargo is canceled, there are still phytosanitary measures that must synchronously be lifted from the two sides. For phytosanitary measures this is usually several weeks, because this requires inspections to be carried out. They are already underway for certain product types," he said.