November 15, 2004

EU To Loosen Restrictions On Indonesian Shrimp Imports

The European Union (EU), which has been strictly regulating the tolerable limits of antibiotic residue in shrimp from Indonesia, intends to relax its restrictions.

Indonesian Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry spokesman Sumpeno Putro said on Friday that the antibiotics whose tolerable limit will be lowered by the EU were cloramphenicol and nitrofuran.

Earlier, the EU had required that shrimp allowed to enter its markets must be entirely free of these antibiotics or zero tolerance, he said.

However, the EU had recently decided that the limit of detection instrument for cloramphenicol was as high as 0.3 part per billion (ppb) and nitrofuran 1.0 ppb, he said.

Therefore, Sumpeno said, as long as shrimp exports to the EU did not exceed the tolerable limits they will be accepted.

He said with the new regulation, it will be easier for Indonesia to export shrimp to the EU.