VietNamNet Bridge – Bad news has come in thick and fast to Vietnamese farmers and farm produce exporters.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade in late March 2013 informed that QIA, the South Korean quarantine agency would examine Vietnam’s frozen shrimp products looking for Ethoxyquin, until the end of the year.

The concentration level set by the importer is very low, at 0.01 ppm, or 0,01 mg per kilo, which is equal to that required by Japan.

Analysts believed that QIA made such a decision after realizing that many South Korean enterprises imported shrimp from Vietnam to re-process for exporting to Japan. The examination would help South Korean enterprises avoid the problems when exporting to Japan.

Meanwhile, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has reported that a lot of countries released the decision to prohibit the fresh shrimp imports from Vietnam in the first quarter of 2013.

Most recently, BFAR, the Filipino fisheries and aquatic resources agency, in early May released a decision to prohibit the imports of fresh shrimp and crustaceans from Asian countries, including Vietnam.

The decision, according to BFAR, aims to avoid the infection of the current shrimp diseases to the domestic shrimps, which may harm the local shrimp hatchery.

Prior to that, Mexico informed the prohibition of black tiger shrimp and white leg shrimp from Vietnam since April 18, 2013.

However, VASEP said the moves would not much affect Vietnam’s exports to the markets, because the prohibition would be applied to fresh products, while Vietnam’s seafood exports, mostly frozen products, would still go as usual.

In March, Vietnamese enterprises once had to struggle hard to prove that they did not dump shrimp in the US market in an anti-subsidy lawsuit raised by a group of US companies.

Nguyen Xuan Hong from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) on May 6 said that a lot of tea export consignments to European countries have been refused because of the Acetamiprid and Imidacloprid found in the products.

Just several days ago, local newspapers, quoting foreign sources, reported that RPA, the US rice producers’ association, has petitioned the Food and Drug Agency (FDA), saying that Vietnam’s rice has the plant protection substance residues higher than the allowed level.

In the petition to the FDA, RPA recalled the information that Japan once refused Vietnam’s rice because of the same problem.

The decision was made after a notice of ARI, a big Spanish company with its headquarters in Texas, stated that it would import more long grain rice from Vietnam in the time to come.

Chair of the Vietnam Food Association (VFA) -- Truong Thanh Phong, on May 5 said that it is unconvincing to use the information about the Japanese refusal to talk about Vietnam’s rice.

Phong said this happened a long time ago, and Vietnam’s rice has come back to the Japanese market with very high quality.

Le Viet Hai, General Director of Mekong JSC also said that Vietnam’s rice quality has been improved considerably over the last few years. He also said that the US always sets very strict technical barriers on import products. Therefore, it’s nearly impossible to bring low quality products to the US market.

Meanwhile, Tran Tuan Anh, Vice Minister of Industry and Trade, on May 6 affirmed that he has not received any document or any information from FDA. However, he has promised to contact FDA to clarify the issue.

Dan Viet