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Lithuania should search new markets for its dairy exports

The Russian consumer rights’ watchdog Rospotrebnadzor banned the import of dairy products from the Baltic state on October 7 over quality claims

VILNIUS, October 22 (Itar-Tass) - Lithuania’s dairy producers should seriously think of diversifying its export markets, the Baltic state’s Prime Minister, Algirdas Butkevicius, said in an interview on the national radio on Tuesday.

“We take a significant part of our dairy products to Russia, as this market yields the highest revenues,” he said, adding that it would be a mistake to focus only on eastward exports. “Any manager will tell to you that it is impossible to work only on one market.”

The Russian consumer rights’ watchdog Rospotrebnadzor banned the import of dairy products from the Baltic state on October 7 over quality claims, which Vilnius described as groundless.

“The existing practices will soon yield results as concerns dairy exports to China,” Butkevicius said. “Brazil is another promising market for us. The talks on increasing exports of dairy products to the United States are underway.”

Moreover, representatives of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Ukraine demonstrated their interest, he said, adding that “Lithuania has to work with many partners as we see that the economic situation in EU member-states is improving not so positively as we hoped for this early this year.”

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