At the end of 2017, the Hlubokaye Milk Canning Factory underwent a reorganization. This year it is looking for investors and is slowly building a dairy facility in the village of Shcherby. But now the unitary enterprise has the same problems as the entire Vitsebsk region and the whole of Belarus. Russia has banned the sales of Belarusian milk, cream, and buttermmilk in any form — including dry and condensed.
The Hlubokaye condensed milk has come under Union State sanctions for the first time.
Although the Rosselkhoznadzor temporarily suspended the ban on March 6, exports to Russia did not resume. As the sources at the plant informed Belsat, only butter is shipped to the east. Employees of the Hlubokaye plant, with whom our journalists communicated, believe that the claims of the Russian sanitary inspection service to their products are evidence-free.
The management of the enterprise did not provide any comment on the situation with the main sales market.
Prohibitions of Belarusian milk and condensed milk sales were preceded by increased laboratory control of Belarusian products. Last Tuesday, for example, the Russians introduced the hyper-control of the products of other 10 Belarusian enterprises. The Federal Service for Veterinary and Sanitary Supervision announced that it had found antibiotics and bacteria in the beef, antibiotics and milk powder in the liquid milk, and even vegetable fats in the Shchuchyn cheeses.
Representatives of the Belarusian enterprises from the black list speak about the strange rules of the game in the common market. For example, without warning, sanctions were introduced for the remnants of antibiotics, which had not been previously controlled at all.
Maybe the problem lies not with politicians, but with competitors from Russia?
Economists explain Russia’s new meat and milk war against Belarus not by political reasons, but by lobbying coming from Russian producers. This is indirectly confirmed by the Russian prime minister. At the Sochi Investment Summit, Dmitry Medvedev announced the doctrine of Russia’s food security. All products need to be bought inside the federation in order not to depend on anyone.
“The task is to completely solve the food problem for all varieties of livestock products, for meat, for milk. As soon as we can do this, we, in fact, will feed ourselves,” the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation expressed his hope.
This contradicts the idea of the common market of Belarus, Russia, and Kazakhstan. In the Eurasian Economic Commission, the ban on the import of Belarusian milk has already been called a violation of the EAEC norms.
Yaraslau Stseshyk, Belsat, photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / ITAR-TASS / Forum
