April 29, 2011
Russia starts Colombian shrimp imports
The Russian government has authorized shrimp deliveries into the country from Colombia from March 1, after two years of efforts by the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA) and the National Institute of Food and Drug Monitoring (Invima).
The authorisation was finalized after a team of experts from the Federal Service for Veterinary Control (Rosselkhoznadzor) conducted a thorough investigation of the processing plants in Colombia.
It is expected that the four sizes of shrimp (70, 80, 90, and 100) should be exported to the Russian market, out of a total of nine sizes.
The assistant manager of the ICA border protection, Rafael Sanmiguel, said that the Russian authorities demanded that the shrimp should be free from those bacterial infections and viruses that appear in the list of the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), such as the white spot and the yellow head.
"Therefore, aquaculture companies currently seeking to export products must necessarily meet all the requirements of the Resolution 1414 of 2006 to receive authorization from ICA, which is the only body in charge of monitoring the products excellent conditions," stated Sanmiguel.
The director of Proexport, MarÃa Claudia Lacouture, stated: "The Russians are quite strict on sanitary conditions; therefore, after their visit to Colombia, experts found that the only company that met all conditions for exports was Zeus Investment Inc."
She explained that that company has been farming shrimp for more than 20 years, and it has exported it to several countries, such as Spain and France, UK, USA ,and Italy. The foreign sales of the firm amount to about US$1 million, added Lacouture.
Before June, Zeus Investment will export whole cooked shrimp, Portfolio reported.
The general manager of the exporting firm, Iván MartÃnez, expressed his satisfaction for being the first company to bring Colombian shrimp to Russia. He pointed out that the company has 100 pools for farming, located in a plant which employs 400 people.
Lacouture said the Proexport goal for 2011 is to exceed last year´s shrimp exports, which generated US$22.3 million.
