Source:  Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 2/24/10

Discussions last week between U.S. pork industry officials and Russian veterinary authorities signaled progress toward the resumption of U.S. pork exports to Russia, according to the U.S. Meat Export Federation.

Thad Lively, the organization's senior vice president, headed a U.S. delegation that included 13 U.S. companies and met with a Russian team led by the country's chief veterinary officer, Dr. Nikolay Vlasov.

"Our understanding, from talking to Dr. Vlasov and his colleagues as well as to USDA, is that the two governments are very close to finalizing agreement on a new health certificate, which has been one of the hurdles, of course, to getting back into the market," Lively said in USMEF's weekly audio report. "We also understand that the two governments have agreed on a new system that will be managed by the [Agricultural] Marketing Service at USDA for approving plants for export to Russia. So both of those basic pieces are vey close to being done, and we are optimistic that we will see some announcements on both of those things."

Lively also expressed optimism about reinstating U.S. plants that were delisted when they failed to pass a Russian audit in late 2008.

"We felt we had a useful and helpful conversation with Dr. Vlasov and his colleagues about the audit procedure and what might be possible in terms of trying to get some of those plants relisted," he said. "From our conversation with the Russian vets, we understand that it should be possible to do that in a fairly straightforward way by address the points the auditors made when they were in the plants and giving assurances, of course, to the Russian vets that their concerns were addressed."

Some U.S. pork plants also have been banned due to documentation errors. Lively said recommendations for addressing documentation errors will be developed in coming weeks, and a proposal based on those recommendations will be presented to Russian officials.
Addressing recent speculation that the U.S. beef industry may lose access to Russia, Lively said no such trade interruptions have surfaced to date.

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