March 27, 2009

European Union (EU) inspection delegation will arrive in the country in April to check local aquaculture areas and processing factories licensed to ship their products to the EU market.

According to Nguyen Dinh Thu from the National Agro-Forestry and Fisheries Quality Assurance Department(NAFFQAD), domestic seafood processors will break barriers to almost all seafood markets worldwide if they meet the EU's hygienic standards.

Thu said Vietnamese seafood products are highly priced in the EU with catfish fillet sold at US$3 to US$4 per kilogramme instead of below US$2 in the US.

EU is a key market for Vietnamese exporters, accounting for over 25 percent of the country's total seafood export value, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

EU is also a standard market for the global seafood industry, with other international seafood importers like China, South Korea, Brazil and the Middle East revising their criteria following EU's standards.

Some 26 out of 27 EU countries imported 350,000 tonnes of seafood worth over US$1 billion from Vietnam last year.

MARD deputy minister Luong Le Phuong said that 301 local producers with EU Code, a license to export seafood to the EU, will have to meet hygiene standards of EU inspectors.

Phuong advised that domestic producers not repeat mistakes of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

After inspections in these countries, the EU has suspended seafood import from Malaysia and decided to rigorously check Indonesia's products, while Thailand has also received a long list of warnings due to their shortcomings.

The deputy minister added that Vietnam has the largest number of processing factories with EU Code in Asia and will gain more opportunities in the EU if enterprises survive the upcoming inspection.