Meat importers protest new inspection regulation

Importers of frozen meats complain that a new requirement that cargos be held at ports for veterinary inspection will unreasonably drive up their costs.

From August 20, importers will have to leave meat imports in storage at ports long enough for veterinary agencies to take samples for food hygiene testing. The decision followed discovery of a substantial number of meat consignments were found to be contaminated.

Though consumers applaud the new decision as a protective measure, it does not please businesses.

A representative of meat importer Intimex Binh Duong said that the measure is not workable because it will cost businesses more money. He said that the storage fee per consignment is $150 per day, and it takes one week on average to fulfill the customs clearance and get certificates from veterinary agencies on food safety.

If the imports are certified as safe for human use, the Intimex representative explained, importers will have to pay over $1000 in storage fees. In the worst case, if the imports are found be contaminated and refused entry, businesses will have to keep the imports at ports for one month at least. If so, the cost could reach hundreds of millions of dong (100 million dong = $656) for every consignment.

The cost to businesses that must store products at temperatures below freezing would be higher. Hao Enterprises complained that its frozen imports are always shipped by air, but Tan Son Nhat airport does not have cold storage facility specialized for the products.

However, the Hao representative said his firm would not dare to keep imports in cold storage at the airport even if such facilities existed because the cost would be exhorbitant. He went on to say that no business can afford to store imported food at ports for examination.

Under the new regulation, if the imports are found to be contaminated, importers must send the goods back to their countries of origin, use the imports for other purposes or destroy the imports. The contaminated imports may no longer be irradiated and sold in Vietnam.

Kelvin Tho, director of a foods import-export company, said that by prohibiting irradiation of tainted imports, management agencies will push domestic businesses to the wall. In the case of meats from Brazil and the US, those countries will not accept return of the meats.

Tho said that all frozen meat export consignments are certified by competent food hygiene agencies of the export countries.

“If irradiation of tainted meat is prohibited, enterprises will not have the chance to survive,” he said. “In general, importers have to pay 20 percent of the value of the import consignments in advance, and if they return the goods, they will lose the sums of money”.

Tho said that some 100 containers of frozen products are now on their way to Vietnam. However, importers have said that they would rather lose the 20 percent of contracts’ values than pay for storage at ports.

In principle, contaminated food could be used as animal feed. However, Tho said that Vietnam still does not have the technology that allows to process animal feed from frozen food.

Meanwhile, veterinary authorities are adamantly opposed to irradiation of tainted meat.

Dr Bui Quang Anh, Head of the Veterinary Agency, said that in other countries, irradiation is applied only to clean food in order to protect products for longer use. They do not irradiate contaminated and tainted food as some Vietnamese people think.

Tags: Vietnam imports