Moscow bans Baltic fish imports amid dumping accusations

Baltic fish imports: Russia has banned the import of processed fish from Estonia and Latvia starting immediately, its agriculture watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor announced today. Although it is citing contamination by toxins as the reason for the ban, the move should probably be seen in the context of accusations from  Russian fish-processing factories that its  Baltic competitors are  artificially lowering prices.
Nevertheless, Rosselkhoznadzor  said that its inspectors found “banned and harmful substances” in fish from Estonia and Latvia.“The waters of the Baltic Sea, where sprats and herring are harvested, have a high level of contamination by toxic substances,” Rosselkhoznadzor said, adding that the widespread nature of the problem made it particularly difficult to monitor canned fish production “down to a specific boat [or] raw-material producing enterprise.”