|
Vietnam seeks Ukraine’s approval on seafood imports
The National Fisheries Quality Assurance and Veterinary Directorate (Nafiqad) is working with its Ukrainian counterpart establish a joint mechanism to monitor seafood imports and exports between the two countries.
It has also invited officials from the State Committee for Veterinary Medicine under the Ministry of Agricultural Policy of Ukraine to come to Vietnam and inspect seafood processors that intend to export their products to the Ukraine.
This was stated in Nafiqad’s Vice Director Tran Bich Nga’s letter to Pyotr Verbitsky, Ukrainian Chief State Veterinary Inspector, in preparation for Ukraine’s applying a new regulation regarding the monitoring of meat imports and meat by-products as from July 23, 2009.
The new Ukrainian regulation requires foreign exports to be evaluated and permitted by Ukrainian agencies before they are shipped and sold in the country.
While waiting for the inspections and authorisation, Vietnam has asked the Ukraine to allow its seafood exporters to continue sending shipments to the country if they meet the market’s food safety and hygiene requirements.
Nafiqad has also asked the Ukraine to provide all of its guidelines relating to food safety and the quarantine of imported and exported seafood to facilitate better communications between the two sides on the issue.
Nafiqad has guaranteed to closely observe the safety and hygiene of imported and exported seafood. They have already signed bilateral cooperation agreements with Canada, the Republic of Korea, China, Russia, Cambodia, and Thailand.
In the first half of this year, Vietnam earned nearly 1.7 billion USD from seafood, with 375 million USD coming from the EU, which accounted for 26 percent of Vietnam ’s seafood earnings.
vov
|
