The Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation proposes to increase by a quarter the quota for tomato imports from Turkey - to 250,000 tons from the current 200,000 tons, the draft order of the Ministry published at regulation.gov.ru.
According to the Federal Customs Service of the Russian Federation, which is mentioned in the explanatory note to the project, as of December 13, the total volume of import of fresh and chilled tomatoes from Turkey to Russia amounts to 190.734 thousand tons with the fixed permission volume of import in 200 thousand tons.
"Proposals for changes in the order are prepared in order to avoid termination of tomato deliveries from the Republic of Turkey to the Russian Federation", the explanatory note reads.
Russia imposed an embargo on a number of products from Turkey from January 1, 2016, in response to the Turkish Air Force's attack on the Russian Su-24 in Syria in late November 2015. Since the fall of 2016, the restrictions were successively lifted, but the ban on tomatoes, one of Turkey's most important commodities, remained in place until November 2017.
Since November 1 of that year, the strict ban on tomato imports from Turkey was lifted, and since May 1, 2018, Russia lifted restrictions on the number of tomatoes exporting companies from Turkey, while leaving a total supply quota of 50,000 tons. In May 2019, the quota was increased to 150 thousand tons, and in February 2020 - to 200 thousand tons.
At the same time, since December 11, Rosselkhoznadzor imposed a ban on the import of tomatoes and bell peppers from the Turkish provinces of Antalya and Izmir due to the presence of quarantine objects in the products. The Ministry reported that it may consider the issue of banning the import of products from two more provinces of the country - Trabzon and Hatay. In addition, Rosselkhoznadzor has been restricting tomato imports to Russia from other countries, including Azerbaijan, Armenia and Uzbekistan since autumn.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from RIA Novosti