September 19, 2013

Indonesian Fish Quarantine and Inspection Agency head Narmoko Prasmadji expressed his interest in the soonest export resumption of Indonesian fish and seafood products to the Customs Union territory.

The Russian party explained that due to the detection of serious violations in the safety system of Indonesian fish products intended for export to the Russian market, as well as due to the insufficiency of the submitted information concerning corrective measures taken by the Indonesian competent authorities after the preliminary inspection report, were the reasons why temporary restrictions on export to the Russian Federation of the above-mentioned products were imposed.

Inadequate measure of the Indonesian competent authority over their product safety was confirmed by results of monitoring (16 consignments of fish products potentially dangerous from the animal health point of view have been detected since early 2013) and by documentary checks (11 cases when consignments were accompanied with unreliable documents have been detected since early 2013).

Prasmadji assured the Russian party that the Indonesian Fish Quarantine and Inspection Agency had done a lot to eliminate both systemic and on-site observations detected during the inspection. They have informed the plants, laboratories and agency officials responsible for fish product certification and are ready to fulfil the Customs Union animal health requirements. Report on the corrective measures taken by Indonesia was submitted to the Rosselkhoznadzor. It will be translated into Russian to facilitate work of Russian experts.

There were 24 Indonesian plants found compliant with applicable animal health requirements of the Russian Federation and Customs Union upon inspection by the agency officials.

Prasmadji would like to welcome the Customs Union officials at these plants as soon as possible. The parties agreed that the terms of next inspection would be determined after the study of materials requested by the Rosselkhoznadzor from Indonesia.