Working Meeting between Aleksey Alexyeyenko and Under Secretary of the Office of International Affairs of Ministry of Agriculture Brazil

The sides discussed a wide range of issues of common interest. In particular, they focused on safety of Russian fishery products exported to the Brazilian food market. They achieved an agreement that the Russian fish-processing plants, willing to export their products to Brazil, will be inspected by the Brazilian experts between the 19th of September and the 4th of October this year.

In order to prepare for the visit, the Brazilian side will provide the Rosselkhoznadzor with its requirements for such plants, a list of inspectors and a draft itinerary for the visit to Russia as soon as possible. When discussing export of Russian grain to Brazil, the sides agreed to speed up harmonization of the annex to the standard phytosanitary certificate for grain. The sides also focused on the issue of rapid cooperation required to identify authenticity of veterinary and phytosanitary certificates attached to consignments of regulated products and quarantine products imported to Russia. The importance of such rapid checks of certificates increased in the context of the retaliatory economic measures taken by Russia and due to a drastic increase in the number of smuggled consignments from the EU accompanied by the falsified certificates.

The sides also discussed measures taken to ensure safety of products (hatching eggs, semen and embryos of agricultural animals) exported from Brazil to Russia. The Russian and EEC safety requirements for such products will be given to the Brazilian side as soon as possible. The Russian side is also ready to provide its safety requirements for raw intestines. The Brazilian side assured the Rosselkhoznadzor that the raw intestines intended for Russia would originate only from the animals that have never been fed ractopamine and other pharmaceuticals or other hormone growth promoters.