The sword of Damocles continues to hang on citrus and mango exports to Russian Federation. Both products have been specified in the high-risk phytosanitary groups under the agreed mutually co-operative procedures for pre-shipment monitoring of quarantine products that are to be exported from Pakistan to Russian Federation.
Agreed procedures were signed between the officials of the national organisations on Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (FSVPS) of the Russian Federation, and the Plant Quarantine Section, Department of Plant Protection (DPP), Karachi in Islamabad on November 23, 2007.
Such products will be allowed for import into the territory of Russian Federation, subject to the condition that within three months of the signing of the procedures, the Russian side does not find any case of violation of international or Russian phytosanitary requirements.
According to details available here on Tuesday, the pre-shipment monitoring of products (subject to quarantine will be conducted by the officials of the FSVPS within one month immediately after the signing of the procedures. The following products were allowed for importation into the territory of Russian Federation within one month, as required under the agreed procedures: "mango" bearing Harmonised System Code (HSC) 0804 and "fresh citrus produce" bearing HSC 0805.
The export consignments from Pakistan of these products to the territory of Russian Federation will be accompanied by relevant phytosanitary certificates issued in full conformity with the international standards and will be signed by officials of DPP.
The phytosanitary certificates for these products will have holographic stickers on them and will be signed by an authorised officer of FSVPS within one month mmediately after signing of the present procedure by the parties.
Every single authorised officer of FSVPS and DPP who has been personally engaged in the joint monitoring of the "subject to quarantine" products which are about to be shipped to the Russian Federation, shall be personally examined for his skills, three to five times, to confirm his level of professionalism. Additionally, the items certified by an authorised specialist shall be subjected to random checks. A weekly report shall be prepared after the inspections and delivered to FSVPS.
In the event that quarantine related organisms are spotted in the consignments that had been inspected by a Pakistani authorised officer, the relevant phytosanitary certificate issued by that particular officer shall be annulled. Then a Russian authorised officer shall issue a relevant report attaching the crossed out phytosanitary certificate of the exposed particular officer.
In the event that selective spot-checking verifies that no quarantine related organisms were found in any consignments inspected by some Pakistani authorised officer, all the phytosanitary certificates issued by that particular authorised officer during the day might be glued in with the relevant holographic stickers.
Economists say that the case for Sanitary and phytosanitary requirements is beyond debate. Continuing research on food and plant safety and advanced, sophisticated, analytical techniques, have resulted in more regulations or modification of existing ones, and stricter controls on imported products. Developing countries need to acquire the capability to conform to the increasing number of new regulations or even question the validity of proposed regulations they consider discriminatory.