The China Aquatic Products Processing and Marketing Association
Monday urged the European Union to drop its January 30 ban on
imports of Chinese seafood.
The association said that Chinese seafood products can be trusted
and said the EU ban was unfair.
The EU Standing Veterinary Committee suspended the import of
products of animal origin from China in late January, asserting
that potentially risky chloramphenicol residues were found in
samples of shrimps and prawns imported from China.
But the Chinese association said that, after conducting meticulous
investigations on Chinese seafood companies, it concluded that
China's seafood products are "well worth the confidence of EU
consumers.''
Association President Zhang Mingyu said in a statement Monday:
"Based on the information the association has collected, the
quality of seafood products for export from the overwhelming
majority of EU-certified enterprises in China is fully up to the
relevant EU standards.''
The statement was hammered out after discussions with 94 key
seafood processors and exporters in China. It urged the EU to
review its 2002/69/EC decision and remove the restrictive measures
on Chinese seafood products as soon as possible.
No
EU-certified enterprise in China has ever before been put on the EU
alert system for quality reasons, Zhang said.
"We believe that it is unfair and not based on scientific evidence
for the commission to prohibit the import of seafood products,''
Zhang said. "It is also against the World Trade Organization rules
regarding fair trade.''
The volume of Chinese exports affected by the EU ban could amount
to several hundred million US dollars, according to sources with
Zhang's association.
The price of seafood products in EU member states has also been
driven up by the ban, according to earlier reports from China News
Agency.
Zhang said: "To protect and promote the sound and stable growth of
the China-EU fisheries trade, the EU should lift the restrictions
and resume the import of seafood products from China as quickly as
possible.''
The Chinese Ministry of Agriculture and EU representatives in
Beijing were not immediately available Monday for comment on the
association's action.
But Ma Weijun, an official with the ministry's Fisheries Bureau,
said work was still under way with the EU to resolve the trade
row.
Last Tuesday, the Netherlands destroyed containers of Chinese
animal products stored in Rotterdam on the grounds that the
products breached EU import regulations.
On
Friday, China declared that it had banned the import of
animal-related food products from the Netherlands after spotting
chloramphenicol residue in salted pork intestine casings for
sausages imported from the Netherlands on March 28.
(
China Daily
April 23, 2002)