OREANDA-NEWS. August 26, 2010. This was announced by Minister of Agriculture and Food Industry Valeriu Cosarciuc after the meeting of the Government, commenting upon situation on limitation of number of suppliers of these Moldavian products to Russia.

He noted the Ministry of Agriculture of Moldova with assistance from the Embassy of Moldova in Russia initiated organization of the meetings with representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia and the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) to discuss current situation. Valeriu Cosarciuc noted the absolute majority of Moldavian companies, delivered fruit and vegetables to Russia, didn’t break the terms of delivery, stipulated by special memorandum, signed in 2008.

According to this document, Rosselkhoznadzor will start to exclude Moldavian companies from the list of suppliers of plant products to Russia if during 180 days it reveals three times the excess of permissible pesticides rate in fruit and vegetable products. Valeriu Cosarciuc told Moldavian suppliers didn’t make such violations.

He also noted, according to preliminary data, many companies out of 33 fruit and vegetables suppliers, selected by Russia, had one founder, and this information might be checked by the Information and Security Service of Moldova. According to Valeriu Cosarciuc, in 2009 Moldova delivered to Russia near 100 thousand tons of fruit and vegetables or 1/3 of the total exports volume. Traditionally the share of Russia accounts for 80% of total exports of Moldavian fruit and vegetables.

Let us recall, in 2005 Russia imposed a ban on Moldavian plant products deliveries to Russia, motivating it by the fact that the Plant Protection Service of Moldova didn’t observed the corresponding international requirements, resulting in penetration of dangerous diseases and pests to Russia together with local vegetables and fruit. Moldova resumed the fruit export to Russia in March 2007, after toughening of quality control of delivered products.

Recently Russia reduced the number of suppliers of Moldavian apples to the Russian market by more than 5 times – from 177 to 33 companies because many products that didn’t correspond to safety standards came from Moldova. Most often number of pesticides in the apples exceeded.