Brussels, 21/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 21 March, the Commission approved eight programmes from Member States for the promotion European agricultural products (wine, cheese, fruit, olives and quality products) in a number of non-EU countries (United States, Canada, Russia, Ukraine, Australia, Japan, China, India, Brazil, Norway and Switzerland). The expenditure for the EU is 8.2 million, euro, 50% of the budget of the two- or three-year programmes, which contain public relations activities and publicity campaigns in the third countries to highlight the advantages of EU products (quality, hygiene, labelling, animal welfare, environment-friendliness). Here is the list of programmes: France and Italy: a joint programme promoting apples, carrots and kiwi fruit in Asia, the Near and Middle East, Canada, Russia, Switzerland and Norway (1.6 million euro for Community funding); Greece: three promotion programmes for dried fruit (Russia and Ukraine), olives (United States and Canada) and cheeses (United States, Canada, Australia and Russia) with EU funding of 3.1 million euro; Italy: three promotion programmes for cheeses (United States), quality products like cheeses, olive oil, wine, rice and salami (United States, Australia, India and China) and Fruit such as oranges, mandarins, clementines, kiwis, table grapes (United States) with an EU budget of 2.7 million euro. Portugal: a promotion programme for wine (United States, Canada, Brazil and Japan) with Community funding of 700,000 euro.