The importers claim their profits are harmed by unnecessary food inspections.
Members of the Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) met with government officials in Saigon last week to discuss the challenges they face in bringing fresh meat, seafood, and produce into the country, according to VietnamNet. They pushed for reforms to reduce quarantine times as well as cut down on wasteful sampling of products.
The Lotus Group, a Japan-invested company that provides seafood to restaurants, claims that each of their shipments is subject to sampling, despite never having failed an inspection. They import an average of 50 kilograms of fresh seafood every day and the inspections are harming their bottom line. A representative said “a restaurant-quality fish weighs about five kilograms. By taking away one kilogram for sampling, authorities make an entire fish nearly unusable.”
Nakagawa Mikihisa, a JETRO representative, claimed the quarantines involved in inspections last seven days for fresh meat and four days for vegetables and fruits. The delays mean significant loss of quality for the products. Companies must also pay for expensive storage measures while they await approval for their shipments.
Le Van May, director of the Hoa Sen Food Processing Company, argued that the time for animal quarantine had been reduced from nine days to three days but the change is insignificant because fresh fish imported from Japan goes bad in three days. When taking into account the five to six-hour flight from Japan, by the time the seafood arrives at restaurants it is already expiring.
Despite different timeframes offered in their accounts, the representatives were united in their calls for shorter, less frequent inspections, especially for companies with stellar track-records. They contend that in Japan seafood is only subject to one random sampling a year.
Vietnamese officials pushed back against the criticisms. Hoang Trung, director of the Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said the country adheres to regulations that call for produce quarantines of only four hours at the border gate and 10 hours on the sea if transported by ship or plane. JETRO would therefore need to provide proof of their claims, he said, upon which the State could impose penalties.
The department said any further reduction to the inspections would be impossible and the procedures were already quite lax compared to other ASEAN countries. Dam Xuan Thanh, deputy head of the Animal Health Department under MARD said no companies had complained before and added that Japan’s regulations for foods coming from Vietnam are quite strict.
The debate comes amidst numerous instances of food safety concerns in Vietnam.
[Photo via Zing]
