KIEV, November 7 (RIA Novosti) – The founder of Ukraine’s biggest candymaker, which has been hit by a Russian embargo of its products, has denied that the company has any plans to slash its workforce.
Leading national daily Kommersant-Ukraina ran a report earlier in the week citing trade union officials as saying the candymaker Roshen was set to lay off hundreds of workers as a result of financial pressures caused by the Russian ban.
Roshen founder Petro Poroshenko, dubbed Ukraine's “chocolate king” by Forbes magazine, said that about 50 to 70 staff at the candymaker’s plant in Vinnytsia, central Ukraine, had been hired only as temporary staff to work on New Year’s gifts.
“This is the living process of any enterprise in the food-processing industry,” he said.
The head of the trade union’s branch in Donetsk, Yana Litvin, told Kommersant-Ukraina that some 400 employees were due for dismissal in Vinnytsia, as were another 140 employees at another Roshen factory in the southeastern city of Mariupol.
Poroshenko said Roshen would do everything in its power to ensure that Russian consumers could gain access to its goods.
Russia banned imports from Roshen in late July after claiming to have detected the carcinogen benzopyrene in analyzed product samples. Benzopyrene can naturally occur in roasted coffee and cocoa beans.
Analysts have been quoted by the Ukrinform news agency as saying the candymaker could lose up to $200 million as a result of what has been described as its “chocolate war” with Russia.
The embargo was announced against the backdrop of recent differences between Ukraine and Russia over Kiev’s additional import tax on cars, which Russia believes will be harmful for its carmakers.
Russia has also been putting pressure on Ukraine to join the Moscow-led Customs Union trade area, which currently includes only Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Ukraine, however, has been reluctant to join the group and expects instead to sign a series of trade agreements with the European Union later this month.
