According to the Russian Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Control pear exports from BiH's Republika Srpska (RS) entity to Russia have been temporarily suspended, Srna news agency reported Monday.

Following the publication of this still, unofficial information on the website of the Russian Service, the RS Minister of Agriculture, Boris Pasalic, Director of the Plant Health Protection Administration of BiH Goran Perkovic and Agricultural Inspector Dragan Mataruga held a meeting on Monday where they concluded that the competent institutions are ready to take all necessary measures to respond to all requests and enable domestic producers to export agricultural products to the Russian Federation, the RS Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management announced.

This meeting was also attended by representatives of the Russian Federation.

The Ministry recalled that the phytosanitary inspection of the Russian Federation returned three shipments of pears to the RS in November last year, where the accompanying documentation stated that the shipments contain the presence of a harmful organism that causes brown rot /Monilinia fructicola/.

In the 2020 harvest season, Republika Srpska exported 229 shipments of various types of fruit to the Russian Federation, of which 167 shipments were pears, and, except for three disputed shipments, there were no cases of their return.

In the 2019 harvest season, 529 shipments of fruits were exported to the Russian Federation – apples, pears, peaches and plums, none of which were returned, the Ministry said.