Potato export to Russia to resume this year

Bangladesh will start exporting potatoes to Russia again this year as the latter has lifted a ban imposed on the entry of tubers from this south Asian nation last year, said Agriculture Minister Muhammad Abdur Razzaque yesterday. 

Russia slapped the restriction on Bangladesh's potatoes owing to the detection of brown rot disease in 2014.

Subsequently the government took several measures to ensure production of safe and disease-free potato.

"We have taken initiative to export potato to Russia. Export will begin this year," Razzaque said in a statement issued after a meeting with Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander Vikentyevich Mantytskiy at Bangladesh Secretariat.

Bangladesh is the seventh largest producer of the vegetable and it exports less than 100,000 tonnes out of its annual production of nearly 1 crore tonnes.

Razzaque said the Russian authorities also expressed interest in importing cauliflower, cabbage and mangoes from Bangladesh.