EU completed inspection of Russian exporters

In late June 2008 in Moscow officials from Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Rosselkhoznadzor and National Center of Quality and Safety of Fishery Products (National Fish Quality for short) met with a group of inspectors of the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection working under the EU Commission. For its subject the meeting concentrated on the results of the inspection of the system of securing safety of seafood shipped from Russia to the EU countries, according to Novosti Rybolovstva.

The European inspectors have finished a series of checks of Russian fish processors shipping seafood to the EU countries. At the final talks the Russian delegation was chaired by deputy head of Rosselkhoznadzor Mr. Alexander Ponomaryov, while the EU delegation was headed by chief administrator of the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection Mr. Bastiaan Drukker.

During the inspection two groups of European experts studied the Russian system of checking safety of seafood exported from Russia to the EU. According to the press-service of Rosselkhoznadzor, specialists of the Directorate-General visited fishing vessels, motherships, freezing vessels, fish landing places, fish processing companies and laboratories in Murmansk, Saint Petersburg, Kaliningrad, and Astrakhan, as well as premises of National Fish Quality and the Central Veterinary Laboratory in Moscow.

Within 20 workdays after the inspection the Directorate-General for Health and Consumer Protection should present a preliminary report on the results of the inspection, and then within the coming two months it should prepared a final report.