MEXICO, May 2 (RIA Novosti) - Mexican meat producers are interested in starting pork and poultry exports to Russia in addition to their current exports of beef and horsemeat, Mexican Agriculture and Food Safety Chief Dr. Enrique Sanchez Cruz said.
“Our meat market with Russia is very young in terms of beef and horsemeat supplies and we are currently working on protocols to begin exports of pork and poultry meat,” Cruz said.
“We are exporting pork to Japan, [South] Korea and many other countries and are very interested in the Russian market,” the official added.
Cruz also said that Mexico would take all necessary steps to avoid repetition of its meat exports’ limitation to Russia.
In early April, Russian agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor announced a considerable reduction in imports of Mexican meat products demanding from Mexico to provide certificates guaranteeing that shipments were free of the feed additive ractopamine.
Cruz said he hoped that representatives of the Russian sanitary authorities would come to Mexico in the nearest future and see that ractopamine was not fed to livestock, which is used for meat production.
According to the official, Mexico annually exports 300,000 tons of meat to 38 countries with 27,000 out of them to Russia.