BIZCHINA / Center
US urged to 'deal with' aquaculture import limits
By Li Fangchao (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-06-30 07:29
China urged the United States on Friday to "properly deal with" a move
restricting some Chinese seafood imports "as soon as possible", said a
top official.
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said on Thursday it would
detain five types of Chinese farm-raised seafood products unless
suppliers could prove the shipments contained no harmful residues.
In a teleconference with US Secretary of Health and Human Services
Michael Leavitt and FDA officials, Li Changjiang, minister of the General
Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine, which
oversees export and import quality, urged the US side to let the exports
go through after checking the sanitation certificates issued by China
Entry-Exit Inspection and Quarantine (CIQ).
Li said that China also detected many foodstuffs of shoddy quality among
the US exports to the country every year.
"With the principle of cooperation, these problems were all properly
dealt with," he said.
"Like the US exports to China, quality problems did exist among exports
from one or two individual Chinese companies," he said.
However, Li stressed that China can't "accept" the US decision to
"indiscriminately" detain all aquaculture.
China has already adopted measures to solve the problems the FDA cited,
he said.
Ministry of Commerce spokesman Wang Xinpei also urged foreign trade
partners to accept Chinese products unless they violated contract terms
or local regulations.
The US restrictions included all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace
(related to carp) and eel from China.
The FDA said there had been no reports of illnesses to date, and no
recall order was issued.
David Acheson, the FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection, said
the step was taken due to evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture
products contained illegal substances.
An official from the Agriculture Ministry, who declined to be named, said
the US move would have "serious impacts" on China, the world's largest
producer of farmed aquatic food.
"We are keeping close watch over what the FDA wants," he said.
He explained the requirement for evidence of safety would inevitably
increase export costs and stressed that China had greatly improved the
quality of its seafood.
(China Daily 06/30/2007 page2)
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