Russia toughens rules on import of apples, pears with origin certificates from Moldova

Chisinau, 3 March /MOLDPRES/ - Russia toughens the rules on the entrance of its market, starting from 9 March, by adopting measures that will oblige Moldovan exporters of apples and pears to deliver their goods only through the checkpoints from Russia, and the import certificates will be subjected to a rigorous control.      

Moscow will check the “one-hundred per cent” authenticity of the Moldovan certificates, as it suspects that re-exports of apples and pears are made from the European Union via Belarus under Moldova’s trademark.  The head of the Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Rosselkhoznadzor, Sergey Dankvert, made statements to this effect, cited by the Russian agency TASS.   

The warning comes just several months after Rosselkhoznadzor was informing that it was likely to establish new restrictions on the import of fruits and vegetables from Moldova, on grounds that Moldovan enterprises would illegally re-export products coming from the European Union via Belarus.  

“The volume of vegetal products, as well as their morphology suggests the fact that, under the pretext of being from Moldova, in fact, supplies of goods from EU are made. In this respect, Rosselkhoznadzor does not rule out possibility to introduce restrictions on the import of such goods for the companies that were involved in such illegal schemes,” says a communiqué by the Russian service, issued in last January.  

Media investigations showed that hundreds of tons of apples from Poland, with certificates of origin from Moldova, are exported to Belarus and then re-exported to Russia.

The issue of the quality and inoffensiveness of Moldovan agro-food products exported to Russia was discussed at a 1 March meeting between Agriculture and Food Industry Minister Eduard Grama and Russian Extraordinary and Ambassador to Moldova Farit Mukhametshin.

On 21 July 2014, Russia banned the import of Moldovan fruits and canned goods. One year after the embargo had been imposed, Rosselkhoznadzor said it gave the right of export to some companies from Moldova “as an experiment and is based including on the ascertaining of the lack of elements subject to phytosanitary quarantine in Moldovan goods at the export of apples.”

Earlier, about 93 per cent of the exports of apples, estimated at 43.7 million dollars, and 80 per cent of the export of plums, estimated at 21.1 million dollars, have been directed to Russia.  

(Reporter V. Bercu, editor A. Raileanu)