ArmInfo.After 24 days of downtime at the Upper Lars checkpoint, without a written expert opinion, Russian customs officers returned cars with 21 tons of blue cheese produced in Armenia. The largest transport and logistics company of Armenia Spayka LLC reports on its website.
Blue cheese is a new product of "Spayka" company, which in its technological conditions and quality is fully consistent with the products of the best European cheese makers. The enterprise was opened at the beginning of the year in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Ambassador of the Russian Federation to Armenia. Over 15 million euros were invested in its creation.
As ArmInfo previously reported, in order to expedite customs operations, the company timely provided customs officers with all the necessary documentation, including veterinary certificates, technical production conditions, etc. To make it even more convincing that the cheeses were actually made in Armenia, the company even provided video materials on the official opening of the enterprise for the production of blue cheese in the presence of the Prime Minister and the Russian Ambassador to Armenia. The company hoped that Russia would become one of the main markets for this product under the conditions of the EAEU common customs space and with anti-sanction measures that severely restrict the import of high-quality European cheese into Russia and the import substitution policy declared by the Russian Federation within the framework of the trade union.
In the opinion of Armenian experts, it seems that Armenian producers of products cannot be guided exclusively by the markets of the EAEU and, first of all, Russia with its unpredictable approach even to partners in the Union. Thus, according to head of the Export Armenia Association of Experts Emil Stepanyan, such behavior undermines, discredits the very idea, the essence of the EAEU as such. He believes that the inadmissibility of Armenian cheese on the Russian market is warning for the whole of Armenia, it is a simulation of the situation of a complete ban on Armenian exports to the Russian Federation. "We need to think on a national scale about stimulating exports to third countries - the EU, China, the USA, Africa, the Middle East," he emphasized.
At the same time, as stated earlier in parliament, head of the commission on regional issues of Eurasian integration Mikayel Melkumyan, members of the commission traveled to the Upper Lars checkpoint, during which they identified a number of problems, including administrative ones.