Russian dairy producers asked to ban the import of Belarusian goods

Russia should suspend imports of Belarusian dry whole milk, skimmed milk powder from June 4 until December 1.

This is stated in the resolution adopted by the participants of the All-Russian conference of representatives of the dairy industry.

In their view, it would help stabilize prices for specified products on the Russian market and stop dumping on the part of the Belarusian suppliers. The MIA traffic police and the Russian Railways are likely to be entrusted to carry out an operational control over execution of this measure. In addition, Russian dairy producers advise to "entrust the Ministry of Agriculture, as well as Federal service on ecological, technological, nuclear and agricultural regulation of Russia to develop some control system over the quality, volumes and prices of dairy products shipped from Belarus to Russia prior to December 1, 2012."

Participants also felt it necessary to develop and legislate a system of planning and control of trade within the Customs Union, to harmonize the level of state support given the long-term plans for national development in the Union member-countries. Prior to that, they offer to tighter control over the balance of trade of dairy products and compliance with indicative prices.

In addition, they demand "accelerating the adoption of technical regulations on milk and dairy products of the Customs Union with all the proposals of the Russian side," by introducing more stringent requirements for the use of vegetable fats in the manufacture of dairy products and not allowing the adoption of the term "reconstituted milk."

In 2009, the Russian side suspended supplies of milk from Belarus for a few weeks in due to inconsistency of Belarusian products with the sanitation-and-epidemiological standards of the Russian Federation. A similar situation took place in 2010, too.

May 17, 2011, Russia accused Belarus of dumping in the dairy market. This was followed by the decision of the heads of Agriculture Ministry of Belarus and the Ministry of Agriculture of Russia to weekly coordinate the recommended prices of the main types of dairy products.