Russian regulator will insist that Finland guarantee safety of dairy products
MOSCOW. July 28 (Interfax) - The Russian veterinary and phytosanitary watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor that restricted meat and dairy product deliveries from 14 Finnish enterprises as of July 23 will insist that the Finnish veterinary service offer additional guarantees of the safety of the food imported to Russia.
"A group of our experts is leaving for Finland where it will work out a document together with Finnish colleagues in which the veterinary service of that country will assume several additional guarantees, particularly with regard to dairy products," Rosselkhoznadzor head Sergei Dankvert told Interfax.
The Russian side says that for the resumption of deliveries from blacklisted enterprises the veterinary service should guarantee measures aimed at the fulfillment of Russian technical regulations cornering milk and the veterinary agreement between Russia and the European Union, he said.
Dankvert accounted the need for such guarantees to the fact that a significant number of dairy producers having the right to export their output to Russia had been included in the list of suppliers with the guarantees of the Finnish veterinary service.
"In the process of subsequent inspections Russian experts found out that the guarantees were not fully effective, in fact they were not on par with the promised state of the enterprises," he said.
Earlier reports said that deliveries from certain Finnish enterprises were banned because of the absence of sufficient control over their fulfillment of Russian requirements. Most of the facilities from which deliveries were banned belong to Valio corporation.