A tra fish processing factory in Can Tho city (Photo: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – The Food Safety andInspection Service (FSIS) under the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) hasrecognised Vietnam as a country eligible to export Siluriformes fish (catfish,including tra fish) and fish products to the US.
The US Office of the Federal Register announcedthe FSIS’s legal notice on the determination on November 5.
Accordingly, FSIS has determined that Vietnam’sSiluriformes fish inspection system is equivalent to the system that the US hasestablished under the Federal Meat Inspection Act and its implementingregulations. FSIS is amending the Siluriformes fish inspection regulations tolist Vietnam as a country eligible to export Siluriformes fish and fishproducts to the US.
Under this final rule, only raw Siluriformesfish and fish products produced in certified Vietnamese establishments areeligible for export to the US market.
Aside from Vietnamese authorities’certification, Siluriformes fish products exported from Vietnam will continueto be subject to re-inspection by FSIS at US points of entry for transportationdamage, product and container defects, labeling, proper certification, generalcondition, and accurate count.
In addition, FSIS will continue to conduct othertypes of re-inspection activities, such as taking product samples forlaboratory analysis to detect drug and chemical residues and pathogens, as wellas to identify product species and composition. Products that pass re-inspectionwill be stamped with the official mark of inspection and allowed to enter theUS.
If they do not meet US requirements, they willbe denied entry and within 45 days they must be exported to the country oforigin, destroyed, or converted to animal food, depending on the violation.
From 2014 to 2018, 91.2 percent of totalSiluriformes fish imports to the US were from Vietnam, according to FSIS.
Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Agriculture andRural Development Phung Duc Tien described the determination by the USDA as apositive result as it has recognised Vietnam’s efforts to fine-tune andimplement its legal system for more than three years. This rule, together withpositive signs in the market and rising demand for aquatic products at the endof the year, will create chances for Vietnam to boost aquatic product exports.
Nguyen Nhu Tiep, Director of the ministry’sNational Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department, also believedthat the US’s recognition is an important driving force for the sector todevelop sustainably in the time ahead.
The move will support exports to not only the USbut also other markets since it proves that Vietnam’s capacity for quality andfood safety control in tra fish production chains has met one of the strictestrequirements in the world, he added.
As required by the 2014 Farm Bill, the USDAlaunched an inspection programme for fish under the order Siluriformes in March2016. This programme required that to continue exporting catfish, mostly trafish, to the US, Vietnam had to build and organise its inspection systemequivalent to the US’s in terms of three groups of criteria, namely the legalsystem on food quality and safety control; the law enforcement capacity ofauthorised agencies; and conditions for ensuring food safety and hygiene duringthe whole process from fry production, farming, transportation, process toexport to the US.
In May 2018, an FSIS inspection team made afact-finding trip to Vietnam and recognised that Vietnam’s inspection system incatfish production, processing and export completely meets the US’sregulations.
The draft rule was unveiled in September 2018 tocollect public opinions and won a majority of support. The USDA announced thefinal rule on October 31./.
