EU to impose new rules on Malaysia's agricultural exports

Malaysia's export of agricultural products to the EU market will be subjected to a new rule after the European Parliament voted in favour of a pesticide regulation last month.

 

The regulation is aimed at protecting human health and the environment from dangerous or excessive pesticide use in agriculture production, the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI) said Friday (Feb 6).

 

MITI said this legislation is expected to be adopted by the EU council and enter into force in 2009, adding that the new legislation is planned to supersede existing EU law gradually.

 

MITI said in a statement that the local agricultural industry needed to be more stringent on the use of pesticides to ensure that no banned chemicals are used.

 

It said the detectable level of pesticide residues must not beyond the general default maximum residue level (MRL) of 0.01 mg/kg and might affect other processed products utilising raw materials sourced from farms.

 

The ministry also said the new legislation highlights EU's increasing shift away from scientific risk-based assessment of chemicals substances to hazard-based criteria for granting market authorisation.

 

During the January to November 2008 period, Malaysia's exports of agricultural products to EU countries rose 12 percent to MYR9.13 billion in 2008.

 

 

However, imports of agricultural products from EU countries declined in the January to November 2008 period by 14.9 percent to MYR357.1 million.

 

Among the main major import items were live animals and meat, valued at MYR110.8 million and seafood, fresh, chilled or frozen MYR15.9 million.

 

US$1 = MYR 3.58 (Feb 10)