The ban on salmon import via Iceland may speed up lifting the ban on salmon shipment from Norway.
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Norwegian Salmon Pretends Icelandic
Deliveries of cooled salmon from Iceland could be banned soon Sergey Dankvert, who heads Federal Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control Service (Rosselkhoznadzor), warned Friday. The reason is that the salmon of Norway is being shipped to Russia under the guise of Icelandic salmon.
“We have spotted channels to ship the Norwegian fish under the guise of the Icelandic one under the false documents,” Sergey Dankvert announced. Nearly 90 percent of Icelandic certificates are false, Rosselkhoznadzor claimed.
“In view of the above, we will be forced to take steps, including the restrictive ones,” Dankvert warned. “If the Icelandic party promptly responds to the warning, Rosselkhoznadzor may pick out a few checkpoints to pass the Icelandic fish with validity of accompanying documents being confirmed.”
More than 2,100 tons of salmon have been shipped to Russia in the first three months of this year with around 80 percent of the fish certified to be caught exactly in Iceland. More likely than not, the better part of all salmon was fished in the territorial waters of Norway and then legalized via Iceland and some other countries.
“Only one country – Norway - is able to deliver as much salmon to Russia,” said Sergey Gudkov, head of Norge Fish. “The problem voiced by Dankvert doesn’t relate to bad quality of the fish. It was found out that the fish delivered to Russia was actually caught neither in Iceland nor, for instance, in Great Britain or Estonia. These countries just legalized deliveries of banned fish of Norway.”
Rosselkhoznadzor banned deliveries of cooled salmon from Norway in late December. The official reason of the ban was the heavy metal content in the fish, which amount was said to be dangerous to health. But quite a few analysts and market players attribute the ban to political reasons, as relations of Russia and Norway clouded once the latter detained Russia’s trawl ships near Spitsbergen.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 05, 2006
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