BANGKOK, 26 April 2012 – Thailand and Russia are set to boost mutual agricultural cooperation under the Thai-Russian Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation framework, especially in the areas of rice and cooked chicken meat.
The 1st meeting of the Sub-commission on Agricultural Cooperation under the Thai-Russian Joint Commission for Bilateral Cooperation was recently hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. Among the participants of the meeting were Agriculture Minister Theera Wongsamut and his Russian counterpart, along with representatives from relevant agencies, agriculture unions, and business entrepreneurs from Russia.
The main objective of the meeting was to promote agricultural cooperation between Thailand and Russia. The session also saw the drafting of a Term of Reference (TOR) of the Sub-commission on Agricultural Cooperation, the drafting of an agreement on agricultural cooperation between Thailand and Russia, food safety, information exchange on rules and regulations concerning agricultural imports and exports, cooperation on the export of Thai rice to the Russian Federation, as well as the inspection of cooked poultry meat.
Russia has established a condition that Thai factories wishing to export processed poultry meat to the country must be inspected and certified by Russian authorities prior to the export. So far, the Department of Livestock Development has invited Russian officials to inspect all the 31 factories in Thailand.
