Russia's food safety chief responds to Lukashenka's criticism
Russian Federal Service for Veterinary and Phitosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) confirms its concerns over Belarusian dairy products, Rosselhoznadzor chief Sergey Dankvert told Interfax news agency.
"We will respond with concrete actions to detect unsafe foodstuffs, since the origin of some of the supplied products is unclear to us," said the Russian official.
Euroradio reported earlier Belarus President Aliaksandr Lukashenka on Friday slammed Dankvert for 'ungrounded complaints' over Belarus-made foodstuffs.
Dankvert told Interfax that in the past 11 months this year Belarus had supplied 790 thousand tons of dairy products to Russia or 170 thousand tons more against the same period in the previous year. Additional 15% was smuggled into Russia in deviation of the border check posts.
According to the Russian official, the origin of the raw materials for those products was inclear. Rosselkhoznadzor's estimates suggest that in order to produce additional 170 thousand tons of dairy products, Belarus had to process additional 450 thousand tons of milk. However, milk production growth was only at the level of 50 thousand tons. Belarusian producers do not reveal where they receive additional milk from.
