KIEV, February 29 (Itar-Tass) — Ukraine’s Prime Minister Nikolai Azarov issued an instruction to render support to the dairy producers, whose produce has been affected by the ban on sales in Russia.
As he spoke at the Wednesday’s meeting of the cabinet of ministers, Azarov said the purchase prices of milk are decreasing while “the Ukrainians don’t see any reduction of prices for dairy foods at our stores.”
He said that the Agrarian Policy Ministry and separate officials “have treated the problem without due attention and haven’t offered any reaction to it.”
“People started losing 4 cents to 9 cents per each liter of milk, and this means a telling blow to family budgets,” Azarov said.
He indicated that the individuals’ revenues from the sales of milk do not cover spending.
“If the tendency happens to be persistent, the villagers may start abandoning the cattle breeding and this will be totally unacceptable,” Azarov said, adding that the ministries and governmental departments concerned with the issue should urgently design an efficient and transparent mechanism of precisely targeted aid.
Along with this, if it becomes clear that the companies processing milk are getting super-profits, “these excess profits should be rechanneled to the state budget then.”
Earlier this month, Russia’s consumer rights watchdog agency Rospotrebnadzor issued a resolution to ban the sales of cheese produced by three Ukrainian companies, as their produce did not meet the technical regulations adopted in the Russian Federation.
Rospotrebnadzor officials said Ukrainian cheese contains vegetable fats – something that is prohibited in Russia.
The ban affected the companies Prometei /Chernigov region/, the Piryatinsky Cheese Factory and Gadyachsyr /both located in the Poltava region/.
Later on, another four producers were added to the list. They are the Bashtansky and Lozovsky cheese factories, Bel Shostka Ukraina, and the Khmelnitsky Butter and Cheese Yard.
Ukrainian government officials dismissed Rospotrebnadzor’s actions as ungrounded and said they would examine the cheese in question extremely carefully together with their Russian counterparts.