You're reading: Prysiazhniuk hopes for resumption of supply of confectionery products to Russia

Moscow - Ukraine is hoping to fulfill Russia's requirements and resume the supply of confectionery products manufactured by the corporation Roshen in the nearest future. 

“We will not delay the process. Consumers want sweets,” Ukrainian Agrarian Policies and Food Minister Mykola Prysiazhniuk told reporters in Moscow on Friday after negotiations with Russia’s Rospotrebnadzor Director Gennady Onishchenko.

At the same time, Prysiazhniuk and Onishchenko could not give any specific dates when the supplies may resume.

Onishchenko said the return of Ukrainian confectionery products to the Russian market will involve access procedures, which, in turn, will involve visits by Russian inspectors to Ukrainian enterprises and control of every batch.

Onishchenko said he has no problem with products manufactured by the Roshen factory in Lipetsk. The supply of confectionery products from the corporation’s four factories in Ukraine is now banned.

On July 29, the sanitary services banned the supply of products manufactured by the corporation Roshen, one of the largest manufacturer of confectionery products in Ukraine. Among the reasons for the ban were quality and safety concerns.

This is not the first time Russia’s Rospotrebnadzor has problems with products supplied from Ukraine. Rospotrebnadzor earlier banned the supply of Ukrainian cheese to Russia. The cheese supply was later resumed.

Oleksandr Baldynyuk, president of the association Ukrkondprom, earlier told Interfax Ukraine’s leading manufacturers of confectionery products are now having problems supplying their products to the Russian market.

Baldynyuk said the majority of Ukrainian exporters have problems with customs clearance of their goods on the Russian border because Russian customs officials doubt that their product origin certificates are real. For this reason, goods and transport vehicles are being thoroughly inspected, which causes delays in customs clearance.

The Ukrainian Federation of Employers reported on Wednesday that the Russian customs service had included all Ukrainian importers without exception on the list of unreliable suppliers beginning on Aug. 14, which effectively blocked the supply of Ukrainian goods for an indefinite period.

On Aug. 15, the Russian government said the decision to halt imports from Ukraine had been made by the Russian customs services and no decisions had been made at the level of the Cabinet of Ministers