September 8, 2011

Vietnam urges Japan to suspend seafood inspections

Vietnam has pleaded and assured Japan of chemical-free seafood exports after the latter declared a 100% testing of all Vietnamese seafood products.

Based on recent tests, the National Agro Forestry Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (Nafiqad) there are no exposure to toxic such as trifluralin, chloramphenicol and nitrofurans in Vietnam's seafood products. Thus, concentrations of all chemicals in seafood including shrimp and tra fish are in line with the legal permits set by importers.

The Southern Agency of Argo Forestry Fisheries Quality Assurance also supported Nafiqad's statement, saying most of the tests on seafood exports for chemicals like enrofloxacin and ciprofloxacin came out negative and that Vietnam can freely promote seafood exports to the US, North America and Japan in the future.

In June, Japan announced that it would conduct a 100% testing on Vietnamese seafood exports after some of the shipments were found to contain trifluralin with the concentration of 0.03 parts per million (ppm), three times higher than the legal permit of below 0.01 ppm. This declaration proved to be costly to exporters and prompted Nafiqad to conduct a two-month inspection on seafood producing province following Japan's trade advisory.