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Frozen meat piled up at Chinese border
Thousands of containers of frozen meat which were transiting Vietnam enroute to south China when the H1N1 flu scare occurred are still stuck in northeast Vietnam. China has tightened its quarantine rules and won’t accept them.
Cong an nhan dan, a newspaper published by the Ministry of Public Security, says that its sources believe there is no possibility of re-exporting the frozen meat to a third country.
Re-export impossible
From March to May 2009, thousands of containers of frozen food (beef, pork, chicken, chicken legs and wings) were brought to Hai Phong port by Vietnamese companies that import products from Europe and India for re-export to southwest China at the Mong Cai border crossing. Business was going smoothly until China unexpectedly refused to accept these products across the border, claiming that it could not arrange enough staff to inspect the inbound containers.
While China blocked imports, containers of frozen meat that were on order have piled up in Vietnam. Just in a short time, the Mong Cai border crossing area has become crowded with freezer containers.
The situation is worse at Haiphong port, where 2,000 containers of food are in limbo. There’s no word about when China authorities will lift the ‘temporary ban’ on imports of frozen meat.
An official from the Haiphong Customs Agency said that problems sometimes occur with imports and exports, but he has never before seen such bad consequences for the port’s operation.
Destroying food means burning money!
The frozen food which is stuck at the port iincludes beef from Australia and pork from Europe, valuable products. If they can be kept frozen, they will still have high quality, up to international standards.
The most worrying problem is that the products arrived in Vietnam at the time the world was dealing with news of the H1N1 pandemic. The flu pandemic has induced China, which previously took a relaxed attitude toward meet products, to prohibit their import.
That is also the reason why no government agency in Vietnam dares suggest selling the products on the domestic market. They have only recommended destroying the products.
It is estimated that the price of every 40 feet container of beef is 500 million dong – more than $30,000 -- which means that the 2000 containers are valued at 1 trillion dong. So if the contents of all those containers are destroyed, one trillion dong will go up in smoke.
Re-processing, why not?
A businessman from China, the owner of 200 containers of chicken legs and wings, said he had to give up the containers because of the import ban. However, he said that these products could be ingredients for dishes that are highly prized by Chinese.
An enterprise in Haiphong said that if the products cannot pass the customs point at Mong Cai, they still can be exported to Chinese ports along the seacoast. Exporting the meat this way will not bring high profit, but it is still better than throwing away many billions of dong.
Others have suggested that if the products cannot be used for human consumption, they could still be used to make animal feed.
However, it seems that government agencies brush away these suggestions, and insist that destroying the imports remains the best solution.
VietNamNet, CAND
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