VietNamNet Bridge – The Market Administration Agency has seized dozens of thousands of milk cartons bearing Ensure Abbott brand illegally imported to Vietnam but is unsure whether it has the legal right to destroy them. 

 

 

 

The illegal imports since August 2013 had had the words “not to be sold in Vietnam and Mexico” on the packages. There was no sub-label with information in Vietnamese as stipulated by current laws, except these words written in English. 

The distributors also could not show the invoices of the import consignments.

However, the Market Administration Agency, which issued the instruction, does not know what to do with the recalled products.

It has asked the Ministry of Health to deal with the seized milk cans.

It said the liquid milk cartons could not satisfy necessary requirements for circulation, if referring to the Food Safety Law and the government’s decree No 38 in 2012 that guides the implementation of the law.

However, under government’s decree No 185 released in 2013 on punishment for violations in trade activities, the agency could not find any provision that would permit destruction of the products.

Meanwhile, the representative office of Abbott Laboratories S.A in Vietnam in January 2015 released a document saying that the products are sold in the US, and that they have high nutrition content, and therefore, good for human health.

As such, a lawyer noted that the Market Administration Agency would violate the provisions stipulated in decree No 185 if it destroyed the goods. 

Meanwhile, it cannot put the products on sale or use for non-commercial purposes, because that would violate the Food Safety Law and decree No 38.

The only thing the agency can do now is wait for the final decision from appropriate agencies.

The National Steering Committee No 389 in a report said that smuggling of products has caused a loss of VND40-50 billion a year to the State budget.

The “strange labeling” and the notice tagged on the milk cans, which says 3A Nutrition is the distributor of Abbott’s products in Vietnam, has helped 3A Nutrition Company make big profits.

The 3G Nutrition Company, which has been taken over by Abbott, has been expanding its business in Vietnam. An official report showed that import turnover for the products in 2013 soared by 63 percent.

Pham Huyen