Opinions & Interviews

MINSK, 5 September (BelTA) – Each country, including the post-Soviet states and the Customs Union member states, protects its market and customers amidst the global uncertainty over foodstuffs, Deputy Trade Minister of Belarus Irina Narkevich told reporters on 5 September, BelTA has learnt.

Irina Narkevich stated that she does not see any trade wars between countries today. “We are involved in integration projects, we will remain committed to them, however we should be very careful and responsible when it comes to our market of foodstuffs,” she said.

In her words, in recent times Belarus has been attaching much importance to food quality control. The Trade Ministry set up a trade inspectorate that supervises product quality on the domestic market, including the market of foodstuffs. The inspectorate checks supporting documents and quality certificates, and makes sure all the products are fresh. “We also increased fines,” Irina Narkevich said. She believes that the fines are big enough - now they make from 50 to 500 base amounts (at present one base amount makes Br100,000). The fines will be imposed on legal entities.

“No matter how many regulations we will issue, we need a clear, systemic and comprehensive control,” the Deputy Trade Minister is convinced. She added that control should extend to all the stages of the product cycle – from production to sales, including retail and wholesale sales. “We should not overlook it. All the participants of this cycle need to comply with the law. The trade inspectorate is designed to strengthen control over the process,” she said.

Commenting on Russia’s statements on the safety issues of Belarusian meat and dairy products, Irina Narkevich assured that customers should not be afraid. In Belarus the system of alerting people about unsafe products works incredibly fast. If such products are detected, they are immediately removed.

Irina Narkevich informed that at present the incoming control on the market is being toughened, especially the control over meat, dairy and confectionary products. In her view, the Customs Union member states need to come up with unified methods of product inspection. “I talked with experts; not all of them understand how Russia checked them (confectionary products – BelTA’s note), however we are checking everything very carefully,” the Deputy Trade Minister said.