China plans to supply fruits and vegetables to Russia; 10% of Shandong's output value could meet Russia's entire national demand

Staff at a logistics center in the Russia-China border region distributing fruits and vegetables from China (RT website)

Reference News Network reported on September 26 An article titled "China Ready to Provide Fruits and Vegetables to Russia" published in the Russian newspaper Izvestia on September 24 stated that China is ready to fully meet Russia's demand for vegetables and fruits. Chinese businesses are also interested in purchasing Russian grain and honey. This was stated to our newspaper by officials from the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province, China. It is reported that China and Russia plan to hold a series of negotiations in October on mutually beneficial trade in food and organic agricultural products.

The article stated that Shandong is one of China's most developed agricultural provinces. The province's total annual agricultural output value is 141 billion US dollars (about 5.4 trillion rubles), while Russia's national agricultural output value is about 3.5 trillion rubles. Currently, the trade volume of agricultural products between Russia and China is about 20 billion US dollars.

Officials from the Department of Commerce of Shandong Province said that the province's vegetables available for export include carrots, ginger, garlic, bell peppers, peas, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, cucumbers and broccoli, and the fruits available for export include peaches, pears, pomelos and watermelons. In mid-October, senior Chinese and Russian leaders plan to discuss the conditions for mutually beneficial trade.

Yakov Lyubovetsky, chairman of the Russian Organic Agriculture Association, said that as a major province in China's green food production, Shandong currently exports more agricultural products to Japan than other provinces, and Japan is the country with the strictest food quality requirements in the world.

Lyubovetsky said that the scale of Russia's green agricultural products market is about 150 billion rubles, and by 2020 it could reach 300 billion rubles. So far, the West has dominated this market. If we shift from the West to China, then just 10% of Shandong's agricultural output value could immediately meet Russia's entire national demand for organic agricultural products.

An article titled "China's Embrace" published on the website of the Russian weekly Arguments and Facts on September 25 stated that China says it can provide Russia with all necessary food, but its quality is unsettling; however, Russian experts believe that China can produce and provide food whose quality is not inferior to Europe's.

Anna Lyubovetskaya, director of external relations of the Russian Organic Agriculture Association, said, “China can in fact produce high-quality organic products according to the world's strictest Japanese quality standards and export them to Japan. The quality of such products is no worse than European products.”

Anna also said: “Organic products entering Russia with European quality inspection certificates are often produced in Turkey, Romania and the Baltic countries, and even Europeans question their quality. China has high-quality products and also low-quality goods; the former are produced for countries with strict quality supervision, and the latter for countries lacking regulatory mechanisms.”

The article stated that Finam consulting company analyst Vakulenko said: “Importing food from China is more attractive to consumers in terms of price. Due to the sharp depreciation of the ruble against the US dollar and the euro, Chinese goods, if mutual settlement in Russian and Chinese currencies is used, can be more attractive than European food. But I do not think prices will be much lower, because the prices of Chinese food will be linked to the market.” He said that it will not be easy for European goods to recapture their former positions in the future; they will have to restore trade ties anew, and consumers also have more choices.