Russia will lift a ban on poultry imports from 68 US companies whose production processes meet Russian requirements and will leave a ban on the production of the remaining 19 that have not met the country's sanitation demands, Agriculture Ministry spokesman, Oleg Aksyonov, said today.

According to RIA Novosti, US poultry accounted for almost 80 per cent of poultry imports to Russia. The US import quota amounts to 600,000 tons in 2010.

On 1 January 2010, Russia introduced new sanitary standards, banning the treatment of meat with chloride of a higher concentration than in drinking water. A difficult negotiating process between Russia and the United States began, while Russia was also negotiating poultry supplies with other states as well as trying to increase domestic production.

In June 2010, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and US President Barack Obama agreed to lift the ban but imports did not resume because of the high concentration of chloride in US meat, reports RIA Novosti.

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