DUSHANBE, August 3 (Itar-Tass) - Tajik experts do not have claims against the quality of Ukraine’s Roshen confectionery products supplied to the republic, Deputy Head of the Standards Agency and Trade Inspection Ibodullo Kurbonov said on Saturday.
“We have been monitoring quality of all the products imported into the country, including those from Ukraine, and have never had any claims about them,” Kurbonov said. “As Rospotrebnadzor found in Ukraine’s chocolate benzopyrene, a substance of the first hazard class, the Agency along with other authorities made an additional inspection, but found no hazardous substances.”
Tajikistan’s ministry of economic development told Itar-Tass on Saturday that Roshen’s products are very popular in the republic. Experts say Ukrainian sweets make about 40 percent of Tajikistan’s import of sweets.
On July 29, the Russian Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights imposed a ban on the import of Ukrainian Confectionary Corporation Roshen to Russia.
Chief sanitary inspector Gennady Onishchenko said the Russian service had pretensions to Ukrainian confectionary. “Of late the quality of confectionary products imported from Ukraine raised our great concern. First of all, this concerns Roshen’s candies,” Onishchenko said.
The inspection proved that Ukrainian products “do not correspond to the earlier mentioned parameters. Particularly, benzopyrene has been found in Roshen milk chocolate”, the chief sanitary inspector said.
The Russian consumer rights’ watchdog has already repeatedly banned products of Ukraine’s food makers. In February 2012 it imposed a ban on the import of Ukraine’s cheese. After certain arrangements supplies resumed.
“Of late the quality of confectionary products imported from Ukraine have raised our great concern,” Russian chief sanitary doctor Gennady Onishchenko said earlier. “First of all, this concerns Roshen’s candies.”
Ukraine’s confectionary corporation Roshen is one of the world’s biggest candy producers. As of 2013 it has ranked eighteenth in the list of Candy Industry’s Top 100 candy companies.
Roshen produces over 200 confectionary items. It has its offices in the Baltic states, Hungary and all over Ukraine.
The Russian authorities also discussed restrictions on the import of Ukraine’s confectionary products in the form of special duties. Thus, in early July it became known that Russia plans to introduce special import duties on Ukraine’s chocolate, coal and glass in retaliation to Ukraine’s car import duties. Russia sent a notification to the World Trade Organization stating that Ukraine’s car tax will affect Russia’s car exports by $328 million and will inflict losses of $36 million in taxes. To compensate for these losses Russia reserves the right to collect duties equalling 0.1 euro per 1 kg of Ukraine’s chocolate, 54 percent for the import of coal and 15 percent - for the import of glass. These duties may enter into force soon after they are finalized with other members of the Customs Union - Kazakhstan and Belarus.