(vasep.com.vn) After the annual meeting of VASEP members in June 2012, VASEP had a meeting with representatives from Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) and stated seafood enterprises’ difficulties to the Ministry in 4th July 2012.
Mr. Nguyen Hoai Nam, Deputy General Secretary of VASEP has stated 9 seafood enterprises’ challenges. In detail, policies on tightening control of seafood safety and hygiene push testing costs for exported consignments and limit enterprises’ competitiveness; the environmental protection duty levied on nylon plastic bags used in packaging for exported products double the price of nylon plastic bags and push up the price of the products; enterprises also find it hard to access to bank loans, and subject to a high ocean freight of shipping companies.
Some enterprises told VASEP that their exported seafood consignments were returned as authorized agencies in some importing markets criticized them for mislabeling scientific name and HS code on their exported products.
Some enterprises said, they exported octopus for a long time and still labeled scientific name of Octopus vulgaris on their exported products. Vietnam competent agency - National Agro–Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) audited and confirmed this scientific name on Health Certificate (HC) for these seafood cargoes. However, when they exported products to Italy, these products were returned because Italian authorities said that Octopus vulgaris is not the name of octopus species originated from Vietnam. In some case, these seafood cargoes was heavily fined.
Declaration of seafood cargoes entering the EU under the Illegal Unreported and Unregulated Regulation (IUU) also got some troubles in labeling HS code or scientific name that is different from those of other countries.