April 21 2004, 15:11 APK-Inform

Ukraine limited imports of livestock products from 3 countries because of murrain

Ukraine's Chief Veterinary Inspector Petro Verbytski has informed the participants of the Agrarian Policy Ministry Collegium session today that since the start of year Ukraine has introduced ban onto imports of meat and livestock products from Georgia and Tajikistan, and since April 20 - from a Far Eastern region (Amurskaya Oblast) of Russia, because of registration in this countries and regions the cases of murrain, which affected cattle.

Verbytski said that Ukraine now had a status of murrain-free country. "We have a reserve of vaccine of 3 million doses, being stored in Russia, in case the situation worsens. We also have the necessary diagnostic methods", he said.

Speaking about the economic impact of the ban, the chief veterinary noted that Ukraine imported nearly none of the meat products from Russia. He said in 2003 the import of cattle meat to the country had constituted 500 tonnes, and export - 159,000 tonnes. Since the start of this year Ukraine has imported 100 tonnes of beef and exported 120,000 tonnes of this product.