Pakistan News And Discussion-11

[Naresh]

[center]<b><span style='font-size:14pt;line-height:100%'>EU report on seafood production</span></b> <!--emo&:flush--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/Flush.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='Flush.gif' /><!--endemo-->[/center]

<i>MFD fails to enforce quality standards</i>

<b>KARACHI : The European Union has said the Pakistan government has failed to ensure implementation of quality control recommendations, leading to suspension of seafood exports to the 27-nation bloc early this year.

In a detailed report released by the EU’s Food and Veterinary Office (FVO), it observed that the federally-administered Marine Fisheries Department (MFD), a competent authority to ensure production of quality products, implemented only partial recommendations issued by the EU - the largest export market of the country’s seafood.

“Written guarantees given by the Pakistani competent authority (MFD) after the recommendations of the previous report have only been partially implemented,” said the report entitled ‘Final Report of a Follow-up Mission’ prepared after a EU mission visited Pakistan from January 22 to 26, 2007 to evaluate the control systems.</b>

“The competent authority has a documented control system in place. It is based on procedures, reports of audits and supervision, training of officials and result analyses. Some progress has been made in relation to controls put in place by the authority and the microbiology section of its laboratory.”

However, the report said, community requirements were not fully enforced all along the production chain, in particular, the follow-up of the report was inadequate and, therefore, deficiencies as described in the report remained at all stages of production, processing and distribution.

The government in March 2007 received an initial finding from the EU, which informed the fishery authorities about deficiencies in the production chain, which led to delisting of all the processing factories on quality grounds, virtually putting a ban on more than $80 million of country’s exports.

The EU observation came more than a month after its team visited the Karachi fish harbour and other fishery installations in January 2007 to check the quality of seafood being exported to its member countries.

Earlier in February 2005, the EU team ended its visit to Pakistan with warnings that authorities should maintain seafood quality as per set standards, otherwise they would lose their largest export market.

However, the latest EU report cited the irresponsible attitude of Pakistani fishery authorities, which never took serious note of the concerns it raised time and again.

“The origin and sanitary quality of the FP (fishery product) exported from Pakistan are not presently guaranteed and health risks for the EU consumer are likely to occur,” said the report.

“Therefore, the MFD is currently not in a position to verify and certify the special conditions governing imports of fishery products originating in Pakistan as prescribed by the Commission decision 2000/83/EC.” It said the MFD accepted the EU findings with some clarifications and additional information provided by the department to the mission.

The State Bank estimated seafood exports at $160 million in the year to June 2006, up from $138.94 million exported during 2004-05, with EU countries the largest buyers. The EU accounts for more than 60 per cent of total seafood exports from Pakistan and has been the largest single buyer for more than two decades.

Cheers <!--emo&:beer--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cheers.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='cheers.gif' /><!--endemo-->