Türkiye has found a loophole for illegal supplies of tomatoes to Russia
Turkey has long found a loophole to circumvent sanctions and illegal supplies of tomatoes to Russia, the Kommersant newspaper writes today, citing the deputy chairman of the Moscow region government, Denis Butsaev, who oversees agriculture.
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One of the routes is purchasing on the Internet platform “Agrobazar.ru”, the server of which is located in Nuremberg, Germany. The ordered cargo under the guise of vegetables from Morocco is sent through the countries of the Customs Union - Kazakhstan or Belarus, from where it enters the Russian Federation.
For imports, a shell company is registered in Russia, which sells the cargo to another company and is then liquidated.
Turkey now accounts for up to 50% of all gray tomato imports to Russia.
Russia has imposed a ban on the import of most vegetables and fruits from Turkey after the incident with the downing of a Russian Su-24 bomber. Now, after some normalization of relations between Ankara and Moscow, restrictions on the supply of citrus fruits, salt, onions, cauliflower, broccoli and cloves have been lifted. The issue with tomatoes and cucumbers has not been resolved, the newspaper recalls.
In March, Türkiye introduced a 130% duty on wheat supplies from the Russian Federation. This may have a negative impact on Russian grain exports in 2017.
Turkey has found a loophole for illegal tomato shipments to Russia.