October 5, 2010

US poultry arrives at Russia

US poultry, in line with sanitary norms, has finally arrived at Russia after the two countries agreed on the long-disputed issue of chlorine content, the chief Russian sanitary doctor said.

"The first batches of poultry meat processed in line with technology conforming to Russian laws have arrived. This is a landmark event in itself," Gennady Onishchenko said.

"This is one of the few cases when the Americans agreed with safety requirements adopted in other countries, in particular, Russia, and rearranged their production," he said.

US poultry accounted for almost 80% of poultry imports to Russia. The US import quota amounts to 600,000 tonnes in 2010.

On January 1, Russia introduced new sanitary standards, banning the treatment of meat with chlorine of a higher concentration than in drinking water.

A difficult negotiating process between Russia and the US began, while Russia was also negotiating poultry supplies with other states as well as trying to increase domestic production.

The talks resulted in the permission for 78 US enterprises to supply poultry to Russia.