Baltic Export, China, Estonia, Foodstuff, Good for Business, Legislation, Markets and Companies

Photo: agri.ee

Kruuse met on Monday morning with Mei Kebao, vice minister responsible for China's General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ). At the meeting a food safety protocol opening the door for Estonian dairy products to the Chinese market was signed.

Kruuse said on Friday the main objective of the meeting is to achieve an agreement on opening the Chinese market to Estonian dairy products. "As a result of several years of negotiations between our supervision institutions and inspections carried out in Estonia, the Chinese minister has confirmed readiness for the signing of the dairy protocol at the Tallinn meeting," he said.

"Estonia produces almost twice as much milk as it needs and therefore the surplus needs access to new markets. We hope the signing of the protocol will remove bureaucratic barriers to the export of dairy products to China, but we'll certainly continue to provide to Estonian businesses all possible support for making it to the Chinese market," Kruuse added.

Four inspectors from China visited Estonia in September 2015 to make an assessment of the organization of state supervision as part of the process of recognition of veterinary certificates. They visited also three milk processing companies and a dairy farm.

Mei is accompanied during his trip to Estonia by China's Ambassador to Estonia Qu Zhe, consul for economic and commercial affairs at the Chinese embassy Wu Yan, head of AQSIQ's legal department Xu Xinjian, deputy head of the import and export office Bai Lu, deputy head of the international relations department Han Jianping and other officials of the supervision agency and the embassy.

In December, Kruuse and Mei signed in Beijing a memorandum of understanding whereby China recognized the overall organization of food and veterinary monitoring in Estonia.