July 4, 2007

Vietnam's VASEP to suspend exporters shipping contaminated seafood to Japan 

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) will suspend exporters that have sent seafood to Japan containing antibiotic residues. 

The action is one of four main solutions implemented by VASEP during the urgent meeting with seafood exporters in Ho Chi Minh City, on July 3, in order to prevent routinely detection of banned antibiotics in aquaculture and seafood products bound for Japan.

The suspensions will last temporarily from one to six months and re-exporting will only be granted to companies that can provide detailed processing solutions under the guidelines of VASEP and the

National Fisheries Quality Assurance and Veterinary Directorate (Nafiqaved). VASEP has asked enterprises to strictly control the amount of antibiotics during buying, processing and exporting of seafood, while seafood exporters are now required to check antibiotic residues in their exports.

VASEP also proposed that the government and the fisheries ministry should also increase inspections of the import, the circulation and the use of prohibited antibiotics in the market.

Nguyen Huu Dung, VASEP's vice president said that 94 of 6,000 batches of seafood or 1.6 percent of the total seafood volume shipped to Japan in the first half of the year were found to contain excessive antibiotic residues.