Russia grants more permits for U.S. poultry imports

MOSCOW - Several Russian companies have received permits to import U.S. poultry since a ban was lifted earlier this month and they have already clinched deals to import 30,000 tons of poultry, the agriculture minister said April 25.<br> <br> The Agriculture Ministry lifted a month-old ban on U.S. chicken on April 15 after U.S. officials promised tighter controls over exports, but immediately canceled all previous import permits and required Russian companies to reapply for new ones. The ban had been imposed amid Russian concerns about sanitary conditions at U.S. poultry plants. <br> <br> Agriculture Minister Alexei Gordeyev met with U.S. Ambassador Alexander Vershbow in Moscow April 25. Gordeyev said afterward that 15 Russian companies had applied for permission to resume imports, and half had been approved, according to the ministry&#39;s press service. <br> <br> He said agreements had been reached for 30,000 tons of chicken imports so far, and insisted that bureaucratic obstacles to the imports were minimal. <br> <br> Vershbow, however, said in an interview published April 25 that the Russian side had been slow in fulfilling its promise to resume imports. He told the state newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta that it remained unclear whether Russia was ready to implement it fully. <br> <br> Russia is currently preparing its draft of a new protocol regulating the imports that will replace the last protocol, concluded in 1996. The Russian side will present the draft to the U.S. side May 1, but it probably will not be signed until late May, Gordeyev said, according to the press service.<br>

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