(vasep.com.vn) In October 19th 2012, National Agro–Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) issued the official letter No. 1774/QLCL-CL1 on announcing FDA’s registration requirements of food facilities exporting their products to the U.S. under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FMSA).
According to the official letter, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is implementing FSMA’s rules of controlling agriculture, fisheries products imported into the U.S.(including Vietnam).
Complying with the Section 102 of FSMA, agro and fish processing facilities for exporting under FDA’s management must implement biennial registration or Registration Renewal from October 1st to December 31st to be granted a new registration number. This registration number will be valid within 2 years. Since January 1st 2013, facilities’ food cargoes without valid new registration number will be retained at port or refused to import into the U.S.
With an aim to avoiding troubles for exporting seafood to the U.S., NAFIQAD requested agro and fish processing facilities:
- To update FSMA, especially reregistration procedures.
- To urgently implement registration renewal or reregistration with FDA under new FSMA. Every foreign facility must have a U.S. Agent who acts as the domestic communications representative for that facility. Thus, facilities must register to have a U.S. Agent. Note that, since October 22nd 2012, FDA’s registration system started to accept facilities’ registration information on its website. Foreign food facilities should actively contact with the U.S. importers and update constantly information from FDA’s website: http://www.access.fda.gov to implement registration procedures under FDA’s requirements.
Kim Thu