Bangladesh is undertaking efforts to regain its shrimp market in the Russian Federation
Bangladesh has requested the Russian Federation to reopen its shrimp market in the federal countries, which halted Bangladeshi shrimp imports last year over quality issues.
Fisheries and Livestock Minister Sayedul Haque made the request while meeting the Russian Federation Ambassador Alexander Nikolaev on Tuesday.
The minister briefed the media after the meeting.
“Bangladesh exports around 80,000MT fish and fisheries food items all over the world, among which shrimp is around 50,000MT,” the minister said.
Bangladesh exported a total of 7,651MT shrimps to the Russian Federation from 2010-14 after Moscow signed a deed with Dhaka in this regard in December, 2009.
However, Moscow stopped the import in October last year after a mismatch of bacterial standard between the two countries raised health concerns.
“Bangladesh will write to the federation by this week requesting a reconsider of the international standard and a change to their standard,” the fisheries minister said.
“The Russian diplomat also suggested us to send an official letter for amending the standard.”
A technical team of the Bangladeshi government will accompany the letter, he said. “We will also request them to send a team for inspection of our standards.”
The minister informed that Russia has resumed importing shrimps from one Bagerhat Sea Foods (a company in Bangladesh) from February 6, canceling the suspension.
Source: Dhaka Tribune
