Azernews.Az

By Ayya Lmahamad

Azerbaijan Food Safety Agency and relevant agencies are taking joint measures to lift restrictions on the tomatoes and apple export from Azerbaijan to Russia.

As part of the negotiations, the Agency has officially submitted the necessary information about 275 tomato and 37 apple production and exporting companies operating in the country to the relevant authority of Russia.

To date, according to the information provided, Russia has lifted the ban on imports of 51 tomato producers and 37 apple producers operating in Azerbaijan.

It should be noted that the export potential of enterprises that are allowed to export apples to Russian is 88,232 tons, which is 131.8 percent of the 66,924 tons of apples exported to Russia in 2020.

In the meantime, the export potential of enterprises that are allowed to export tomatoes is 164,558 tons, which is 91.4 percent of 179,956 tons of tomato products exported to Russia in 2020.

Rosselkhoznadzor banned the import of Azerbaijani tomatoes and apples on December 10, citing the necessity to “prevent the import and spread” of pesticides to Russia.

Azerbaijan is a major supplier of fruits and vegetables to Russia. The country ranked first in supplies of fresh and chilled tomatoes.

Russia was Azerbaijan's third-largest trade partner, as well as the first largest trade partner among CIS countries in 2020 with a trade turnover of $2.6 billion. Export to Russia amounted to $709.3 million, while import to $1.9 billion.

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Ayya Lmahamad is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @AyyaLmahamad

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