Meeting between the Rosselkhoznadzor Delegation and Head of the General Directorate of Food of the Republic of Bangladesh
At the end of March 2016 some foreign and Russian mass media circulated the information that the Government of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh had refused to accept two bulk carrier ships with Russian wheat amounted to 101 ths tons, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to Rosselkhoznadzor.
The wheat consignment was supplied by a third-country dealer not directly from the Russian Federation. The Bangladesh party justified its refusal by non-compliance of the supplied wheat to quality requirements. However, the Rosselkhoznadzor did not receive any official complaints about inappropriate wheat quality.
The experts of the FGBI Centre for Grain Quality Assessment subordinated to the Rosselkhoznadzor were sent to Dhaka, People’s Republic of Bangladesh, to have negotiations with officials of the General Directorate of Food and to solve the problem.
During the visit the Russian delegation met with A.I. Ignatov, the RF Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary Ambassador to the People’s Republic of Bangladesh. Grain supplies to Bangladesh were discussed. Besides, The Russian Embassy and the Rosselkhoznadzor received official letters of the General Directorate of Food on the refusal to accept two bulk carrier ship transporting Russian wheat.
Next day negotiations took place at the General Directorate of Food in Dhaka. Mr. Foiz Ahmed, Director General, explained that the national requirements of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh had been tightened due to previous problems with the acceptance of 200 ths tons of wheat from Brazil. The unloading of Russian wheat from two ships was not allowed due to non-compliances to the contract requirements. Both wheat bulk cargos were redirected to third countries by the exporting companies. Mr. Foiz Ahmed noted that Bangladesh considered the Russian Federation as a reliable supplier of high-quality wheat. He underlined that Russia was always famous for wheat of premium quality with high wheat grain weight. This is the Russian wheat that has won appreciation in more than 80 countries.
During the visit Foiz Ahmed addressed to the Russian experts with a request to provide technical and consultative assistance in the problem solving and determination of real reason for the Russian wheat non-compliance. As a result of negotiations, it was agreed to perform joint sampling of wheat at the third ship came from the Russian Federation to carry out tests of the wheat for its quality and safety.
After the negotiations the Rosselkhoznadzor experts visited the Central Testing Laboratory in Dhaka and got acquainted with test procedures for grains.
Moreover, Mr. Foiz Ahmed, Director General, informed the Russian party on his distrust of documents provided by the survey companies and proposed grain consignments to be accompanied with official documents. As a result, the parties have agreed that in future a copy of grain quality certificate issued by the Rosselkhoznadzor subordinated institutions when the grains are loaded to the ship in the Russian Federation will be sent to Bangladesh to confirm the appropriate quality of the consignment. The Russian experts told about the world experience when the authorized experts of the foreign country were present during the ship loading. The Bangladesh party will consider such option.
At the end of the visit the Russian party invited the representatives of the General Directorate of Food to visit the testing laboratories of the FGBI Federal Centre for Grain Quality Assessment located in Novorossiysk and in Ramenskoe performing quality and safety control of grains shipped for export in order to assure themselves on-site of high qualifications of experts and technical capacities of the laboratories.