The agreement between China’s General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine and Lithuania’s Agriculture Ministry and Food and Veterinary Service should be signed in Beijing on Thursday, Agriculture Minister Kazys Starkevičius said adding that China’s food safety experts were later expected to visit Lithuania for auditing local companies.

“This will be the first agreement of this type with China. Its main goal is to have China’s experts come to Lithuania, check the companies and issue permissions for direct exports of meat and dairy products,” Starkevičius told BNS by phone from Moscow on Wednesday.

Some Lithuanian companies were now exporting their products to China through intermediaries, he added.

Lithuania hopes to get a permission to export meat products to the US in the nearest future.