Brussels, 20/01/2011 (Agence Europe) - In 2009, close to 1 million tonnes of meat was imported by Russia from across the globe, with the European Union being one of its key trading partners. With the aim of strengthening relations in terms of the trade in meat between these two important parts of the world, the European Livestock and Meat Trading Union (UECBV) and its Russian counterparts, the National Meat Association (NMA) and the North-West Meat Association (NWMA), held a high-level meeting on Wednesday 19 January as a follow-up to their previous meeting at the European Parliament in July of last year.
In addition to increasing cooperation between the meat industries, the meeting offered the European meat industry and suppliers from all major meat exporting countries of the world an unprecedented opportunity to meet representatives of the Customs Union of Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan, as the three countries move to apply harmonised veterinary rules from 1 January 2012 at the latest. Officials from Ukraine also attended the meeting. The overarching theme of the meeting was “Food safety: an essential element of international trade”.
“The meeting highlighted once again the importance of the trade in meat and meat products between the EU and the Russian Federation,” said Vice-Chairman of the UECBV Industry Section Jos Goebbels in his closing speech. He added that “the EU industry aims to remain a significant and reliable trading partner of the Russian meat industry”. He welcomed the first steps that have been taken in cooperation between the EU and Russian industries. In particular, he mentioned a training scheme that has been set up. This will help bring better understanding of Russian rules and requirements. “I hope that further steps in the cooperation area could be made in the near future,” Goebbels said. (L.C./transl.rt)