Belgrade says will not stop food exports to Russia

EU candidate Serbia on Friday said it would honour a call from Brussels not to profit from Russia's ban on Western food -- but stopped short of saying it would curb its own exports. Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic said his government would not intervene to stop Serbian farmers from shipping their produce to Russia as that would be ‘contrary to the interests of the state’. But he pledged to ‘comply with the EU recommendations’ and not provide any subsidies to Serbian producers to help them boost exports to Russia.  Russia earlier this month imposed sweeping bans on food from the United States, the European Union and a handful of other countries in response to Western economic sanctions. Serbia's food and agriculture exports to Russia totalled $117 million in the first half of the year, according to official figures. Agriculture Minister Snezana Boskovic Bogosavljevic, who has been in Moscow for talks meat and dairy trade talks, said that represented just 0.2 per cent of Russia's annual food imports. ‘Even if Serbia reaches a peak of its export to Russia, it would be only 0.4 to 0.5 per cent of Russian imports, an insignificant percentage that threatens no one,’ she said, according to AFP.