Russian farmers must be protected in free trade zone with New Zealand - Medvedev
GORKI. Feb 6 (Interfax) - Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has ordered Russia's Agriculture Ministry to propose ways for Russia to participate in a free trade zone with New Zealand without harming Russian agricultural producers.
"Make the proposals, and we'll think how to combine this with trade cooperation plans in the framework of a free trade zone," Medvedev said at a conference devoted to agricultural development issues in Gorki on Thursday.
This issue was raised by Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov, who said that he had participated in a meeting yesterday to discuss issues related to the free trade zone with New Zealand. The minister said he was worried that opening up the Russian market to New Zealand's dairy products could complicate the situation for Russian dairy producers, whose production fell 3.5% last year.
"A free trade zone is a wonderful thing up until national producers suffer," Fyodorov said, asking "why should we do this?"
He said that he had discussed this problem with New Zealand on a number of occasions. "Everything must be rational as concerns the interests of our producers," Fyodorov said.
