Draft decree on imported food quarantine controversial

Controversial opinions have been raised about a draft of the decree on management, methods and procedures for state inspection of quality and food safety for imported goods proposed by the General Department of Customs.

On November 23, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development organised a meeting with units, associations and businesses to collect comments on the draft.

According to the regulations of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), in the trade, export and import of animal products, countries only require the competent veterinary authority of the exporting country to quarantine and issue an Export Quarantine Certificate for the shipment of animal products. No additional food safety certificates are required for export shipments because the contents of the export quarantine certificates have fully met the requirements under regulations on disease control and hygiene veterinary according to OIE regulations.

Not consistent with international practices

Under the draft, the registration of quality declarations and self-declaration for imported food is required while those are parts of the work being carried out by the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development. The draft creates discrimination between domestically produced food and imported food.

Specifically, imported food only needs one enterprise to register for the product quality declaration the system of the General Department of Customs. Other enterprises when importing this product do not have to register for the declaration.

Meanwhile, the export of animal products from Vietnam to other countries faces many difficulties in terms of administrative procedures and technical barriers.

According to the draft, each imported consignment is required to have a “Certificate of satisfaction of food safety regulations” issued by the competent authority of the exporting country, and the imported consignment must have a “Notice of Reporting the results of certifying food meeting import requirements” issued by the animal quarantine agency at the border gate. The requirement is not feasible and is the same as the provisions of Circular No. 25/2010/TT-BNNPTNT and Decree No. 15/2018 /ND-CP which previously caused congestion of imported goods, affecting production and business of enterprises. Thus, the shortcomings in the clearance of goods from 2010 to now have been included in the draft Decree by the General Department of Customs.

Speaking at the meeting, Nguyen Nhu So, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Dabaco Group, said that some points of the draft were not suitable with the actual situation. 

Many types of goods are now allowed by enterprises to be brought to enterprise warehouses in different provinces, so updating the sampling records within two hours is difficult. Goods are imported to many different ports, some ports are hundreds of kilometres away from the laboratory, and it takes a lot of time to organise quarantine, take quarantine samples, make records, and test. 

“With shipments in ports, quarantine officers also have to take samples for many shipments, from many goods owners, so it takes a long time,” he said.

The risk of imported dangerous diseases

Experts warned that there would be a risk that many dangerous diseases from other countries can enter Vietnam if the regulation on the quarantine of imported animals and plants is removed as the draft decree suggests.

Disease outbreaks can occur at any time, so the animal quarantine agency at the border gates must look up, cross-check information on the epidemic situation that the OIE and the veterinary authority of the exporting countries announce.

Insufficient regulations and quarantine will facilitate the entry of dead/ill animals, expired meat/eggs to Vietnam, which would cause harm to consumers' health. Moreover, it will be more difficult to control the risk of pathogens that cause foodborne illness.

Enterprises have been investing in closed-chain animal husbandry and aquaculture to produce high-quality products for domestic consumption and export. It’s unfair for them if imported livestock and aquatic products are not quarantined and strictly controlled according to international practices.