March 7, 2005

EU to impose total ban on seafood from Pakistan

The European Union (EU) is expected to impose complete ban on the import of Pakistani seafood to member countries from due to non-implementation of EU recommendations regarding the Karachi fish harbour, fish industry sources said on Saturday.

Sources said that EU inspectors were not satisfied with the hygienic conditions at the Karachi fish harbour and will not accept the fish harbour's present system of fish catching and landing on the floor. Due to this, the Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) has also stopped issuing quality certificate for export of seafood to EU countries.

Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) is a competent authority of EU in Pakistan to check observance of EU rules. Sources said that the job of European Union (EU) of Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) inspection mission is to re-assess the quality of seafood production and packaging.

The EU inspection mission had visited Karachi fish harbour from January 25 to Feb 2, 2005.
They said that the mission found some deficiencies such as a bird was found at an auction hall; bad kind of fish was found in a chiller room; oil was seen at fishing boats along with seafood; there was lack of bathrooms and dirty wash basins were found at fishing boats, etc.

Sources said that after the visit of EU delegation the export of seafood from Pakistan to European countries has been stopped due to unhygienic conditions and not implementing the EU rules at the harbour.

The EU mission also checked the condition of fresh fish on different fishing boats and found that these were not fresh, sources said.

According to sources, the EU delegation said that the voyage of catching seafood should be reduced from 12 days to 3 days so as to maintain freshness of the seafood.

They said that as a result of the visit there has been no export of seafood to EU countries for more than 20 days.