Although accounting for more than 11% of the total export turnover of the entire Vietnamese seafood industry at present, the European Union (EU) is the “foundational” market for Vietnam to continue expanding its exports to the world. Therefore, transparency in compliance with quality regulations from farming, processing to exporting must be strictly enforced…

The seafood industry needs transparency to export sustainably to the EU. Photo: Trung Chanh

In the first half of this year, Vietnam's total seafood export turnover reached 4.355 billion USD, up 4.9% over the same period last year. Of which, exports to the EU reached about 500 million USD, accounting for about 11.5% of the total export turnover of the whole industry.

Although the export turnover to the EU is not too large, this is the "foundational" market for developing exports to other markets. Because when Vietnamese seafood is highly appreciated by the EU, it is automatically accepted by many other markets.

At the workshop "Regulations on food safety in aquaculture" held recently in Can Tho city, Ms. Nguyen Thi Bang Tam from the Department of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) assessed that the US and EU are two "leading" markets for the entire seafood industry to continue exporting internationally. "If there are problems in these two markets, it will cause a "domino" effect, affecting the entire Vietnamese seafood industry," she emphasized.

Currently, Vietnam has 484 processing and cold storage enterprises participating in exporting to the EU market, while there are 1,238 pangasius production facilities and hundreds of thousands of shrimp industries participating in the global export chain, including the EU.

Because of the above importance, compliance with the regulations of the import market, especially with the EU, must be strictly enforced. However, in reality, Vietnamese enterprises are still making mistakes when selling to this market.

"Declare" purchase of aquatic products in land for growing crops

Ms. Bang Tam of the Department of Fisheries said that from September 24 to October 17, 2024, the field inspection team of the EU's Directorate for Health and Food Safety (DG-SANTE) will visit a number of localities in Vietnam to assess residue control activities for seafood exported to this market, including Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Dong Thap and Tien Giang.

DG-SANTE also examines the "reliability" of ensuring that farmed seafood exported to the EU does not contain residues according to the regulations of this market. At the same time, it examines whether Vietnam continues to meet the EU's requirements on residue control plans according to the requirements of the EU market.

DG-SANTE's approach is a systematic assessment, in which the equivalent assessment step in terms of Vietnam's management, namely the legal regulations on seafood production, processing and export, has been completed.

According to Ms. Bang Tam, the EU side came to Vietnam this time to evaluate the implementation at the local level, that is, whether it is in accordance with the legal regulations issued by the Central level or not, including periodic inspections, implementation assessments, etc.

The question is, how has the Vietnamese seafood industry chain implemented the regulations in the past?

Mr. Nguyen Tien Diet, Deputy Head of the Tien Giang Fisheries Sub-Department - the locality where the EU delegation will conduct field inspections - said that in the first months of this year, this unit received many requests to verify whether exporting enterprises had purchased fish in Tien Giang province or not. Because, after a shipment was warned of violations, the enterprise declared that it had purchased raw materials in Tien Giang.

However, an "ironic" thing happened, that is, the address where the enterprise declared to buy seafood was actually land for... growing trees. "That address, the land owner planted trees but did not raise fish, but the enterprise declared up to 50-70 tons. When the Quality Management Center of Region 4 came to verify, the address the enterprise had declared was still not a place for raising seafood," said Mr. Diet.

The enterprise's "dishonesty" in declaration made it difficult to trace the origin, investigate the cause to find a way to correct the error after the shipment was warned by the EU. This is the story of how a business declared after a shipment was contaminated, that is, declared incorrectly, causing local officials to go around in circles.

Or in one case, after the EU warned about antibiotics, the business declared that it had purchased the shipment from a facility, but the facility blamed the antibiotic residue on the seed that had not been completely eliminated during the breeding process. Meanwhile, the seed supplier affirmed that no antibiotics were used because the facility met GlobalGAP standards (good agricultural practices according to international standards).

However, the “links” in the above case could not be proven because there were no related documents. When the incident occurred, one side pushed the responsibility to the other, making the problem more “complicated”.

Because of the “non-standard” business practices, the business had to explain in a roundabout way, leading to the European side not accepting it. In fact, there have been cases where businesses have been banned from exporting to this important market.

Processing pangasius for export. Photo: Trung Chanh

It's time to be "transparent"

From the above issue as well as the EU's request, Mr. Diet believes that it is time for businesses to be transparent. Businesses should not prolong the collection of raw materials in many places, without contracts, certificates/confirmations as they are doing now.

Obviously, the fundamental solution in complying with regulations must come from businesses, that is, businesses that buy goods with clear origins and test them in advance to ensure quality. This will affect the stages of farming, providing breeds, food and even medicine, which must be followed, because doing it wrong will not be able to sell the products.

State agencies share and are ready to go to each pond to inspect and fix, but it is important to have the cooperation and companionship of businesses, that is, businesses must be transparent. "This is the only way to be successful and sustainable," he emphasized.

Meanwhile, Mr. Nhu Van Can, Director of the Aquaculture Department of the Department of Fisheries, agrees that fisheries management must be systematic, otherwise "roundabout" management will be difficult to survive in the current context.

According to Mr. Can, the Decree amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 02/2017/ND-CP of the Government on "Mechanisms and policies to support agricultural production to restore production in areas damaged by natural disasters and epidemics" is being implemented. In particular, some important contents will be included, including cage farming must be registered for a code; marine farming must be licensed; seed production must have a certificate of eligibility..., to receive support when damaged by natural disasters and epidemics. "It is time to be bound by policy mechanisms and support to promote compliance", he emphasized.

Another important issue requested by the Director of the Department of Aquaculture is that the enforcement level must "tighten" the management of seeds and feed. "Inputs must be controlled according to group II, meaning they must be certified as eligible", he emphasized.

Meanwhile, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thuy, Head of the Aquaculture Management Department (An Giang Province Fisheries Department) proposed that it is necessary to separate the production subjects for export to the EU for management purposes.

The above proposal was made because there are currently some antibiotics that Vietnam "does not prohibit" so farming facilities still use them. Meanwhile, the EU prohibits them, so it is very easy to violate when the processed products are sold in this area. "If we cannot separate the export market, we will not be able to control it. This is a very worrying issue for the next period (field inspection period)", Ms. Thuy emphasized.

Source: TheSaiGonTimes