Russian, Moroccan specialists to talk food delivery safety in April
MOSCOW. March 18 (Interfax) - Specialists from Russia's Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Oversight Service (Rosselkhoznadzor) and its counterpart in Morocco will next month discuss issues involved in ensuring the safety of food-product deliveries to Russia.
Rosselkhoznadzor said that agreement to this effect was reached during a meeting between Rosselkhoznadzor chief Sergei Dankvert and Moroccan Ambassador to Russia Abdelkader Lesheheb in Moscow on Tuesday.
The consultations will take place in the context of a meeting of a mixed Russian-Moroccan intergovernmental commission for economic and scientific-technical cooperation to be held in Casablanca.
Morocco provides Russia with citrus fruits, tomatoes, fish, and fishmeal. At the present time, Rosselkhoznadzor is mainly concerned about continuing discoveries of organisms in Moroccan crop products that are quarantineable in Russia, particularly Mediterranean fruit flies. There were 132 such instances last year.
There are 130 Moroccan enterprises on the list of fish and fish-product suppliers to Russia. But in actuality, no more than 50 of them export their product to the country. So, Dankvert said during the meeting, the time has come to update the list and remove from the register those that are not interested in delivering product to the Customs Union countries or are not able to fully meet the requirements of Union law.
Trade between Russia and morocco tops $440 million a year.
