January 4, 2011

Vietnam's seafood quality control boosts exports

ISO certificates have cleared the way for Vietnamese seafood into highly demanding markets such as the US, EU and Japan, said Dr Ngo Quy Viet, General Director of the Directorate for Standards and Quality.

Over 6,000 enterprises, including Vietnamese seafood firms have so far been recognised of meeting national standards on quality management called ISO 9001, one-twelfth of which received additional HACCP certificates, called ISO/IEC 22000, in recognition of their food hygiene and safety.

On the other hand, Global GAP certificates have given a hand to increasing Vietnamese farm produce prices in these markets.

By 2009, almost 9,000 enterprises have been provided with bar-codes beginning with 893 to present Vietnam, which has contributed to raising domestic products' image and competition abroad.

The application of bar-codes has become popular in production management and trading, which has worked in increasing production outputs and improving product quality while reducing unnecessary costs.

As a result, some domestic products have gained ground against once-dominated imports to take increasing domestic market shares.

The proportion of end-products in export revenues has constantly increased, said the quality control chief.