October 29, 2007
Japanese rejects seafood from six Vietnamese exporters
The Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has barred six consignments of Vietnamese seafood between October 5 and 15 as they were found to contain excessive levels of chloramphenicol.
The consignments, composed of five shipments of shrimp and one container of cuttlefish, were exported by five Vietnamese companies.
The companies were Thuan Phuoc Seafood and Trading Company; Quy Nhon Frozen Seafood Company, Cadvimex Seafood Import - Export, Nha Trang Seafood Processing Company and Hai Nam Co Ltd.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Japan will completely ban exports from these companies should they fail to comply with the requirements.
The strict regulations on food hygiene have slowed Vietnam's seafood exports, particularly in Japan where there have been negative growth rates since end-2006, says VASEP.
In the first nine months of this year, Japan imported US$525.6 million worth of seafood from Vietnam, down 12.2 percent over the same period last year which amounted to 19.4 percent of total seafood exports.
In the last six months of 2006, 4.6 percent of export consignments were found tyo contain greater than allowed antibiotic residue levels. That figure decreased to 1.6 percent in the first half of 2007 as only 0.75 percent of export consignments (9/1,204 consignments of shrimp and cuttlefish) were turned away by July 2007. It was expected that the figure would reduce to 0.5 percent despite the higher export volume.
Experts have warned that Vietnam may lose the Japanese market if hygiene problems continue as Japan is continually seeking other supply sources. The country has bought greater amounts of jumbo and processed shrimp from Thailand and material shrimp from India and Indonesia.
The only good news came in September, where reports showed exports to Japan increased slightly in value (2.9 percent), ending the prolonged fall, though the quarter one through three export turnover still saw a reduction of 12.2 percent.
