INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia's food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor has partially lifted an import ban on bananas from Ecuador, the Kommersant business
dailyreported Friday.Moscow said earlier this month it wassuspending authorizations for five Ecuadorian banana exporters due to the
Thirteen other exporters were later added to the ban, importerstold The Moscow Times' Russian service Wednesday on condition of
President Daniel Noboa's announcement on Jan
10 that he had accepted a U.S
offer to exchange the Soviet-era equipment for modern weapons in a $200 million deal.Washington said it planned to send the Ecuadorian
invasion.Rosselkhoznadzor chief Sergei Dankvert reversed the original ban on five Ecuadorian banana exporters ahead of talks with his
delegation to Moscow to resolve the banana export issue.The state-owned Russian Agricultural Bank, meanwhile,forecasted a nationwide banana
shortage as early as March due to the import ban.Russia imports nine out of 10 bananas from Ecuador, whereas the Central American country
exports around one-fifth of all of its bananas to Russia.Rosselkhoznadzor said earlier this month that Russia had begun buying bananas from
India to boost imports after the loss of Ecuadorian producers.However, there are major logistic hurdles that would need to be overcome
before Russia can make the switch, according to an industry insider."There is no established transport [of bananas] from [India], there are
It turns out that you need to immediately start carrying huge amounts [of bananas]..
but at the same time there is no certainty that shipments will come through," the insider, who asked not to be named, told The Moscow
sell Colombian bananas, without any objective reasons
Plus, I don't think Colombia has the production capacity," the insider said."Theoretically, Russia could switch from Ecuador to some other
country, but given the fact that 97% of our [banana] imports for retail come from Ecuador, it's unlikely that it would be the same volume,"
they added.AFP contributed reporting.?
