Agriculture Ministry state secretary Janis Lapse told reporters that European representatives have found goods, the export of which is not subsidized.
"Each cargo will have a European certificate," said Lapse.
He also mentioned that the Agriculture Ministry has agreed to start talks in September on assigning quotas for this form of trade in non-subsidized goods. This free trade could start in January 2000.
Lapse said he had no doubts that such a trading system can be started in January next year, but expressed concern about the volume of quotas, forecasting that it could be rather small.
The EU has already submitted its list with the possible products, containing cheese, eggs, pork, fowl, apples and tomatoes. The issue on butter has remained debatable, since it is heavily subsidized in the EU. Corn and beef are not to be included in the list since these products are heavily subsidized.
Latvia, in turn, would be able to submit to the EU its own list of goods, which would include potato starch, potatoes and fish.
Only export subsidies in such a trade are banned, whereas production subsidies are allowed. Lapse said that Latvia would still benefit from it, because the price of Latvian goods would be close to EU prices and some products would even cost less because of the cheap labor force and older and cheaper equipment.
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