Mr Nguyen Nhu Tiep, Vice Head of National Agro Forestry, Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) reiterated that quality management is a very important mission of maritime product export chain. Therefore, it is essential to enhance chain quality management so as to avoid similar unfortunate events during the past time. Nguyen Thanh reports.
It seems that the most serious problem in export lies in not only the shortage of material but also quality management. Could you please let us know your opinion regarding this?
It is a fact. Currently, the quality of our breeding is low. The typical include cat fish, fresh water shrimp. The survival rate is very low. The number of guaranteed breeders are not high, especially shrimp whose parents are completely dependent on natural exploration with limited selective quality.
In addition, the use of plant protection drugs in aquaculture is causing great damage to farming. The food intake for aquaculture in our country has not yet met the demand. Unstable prices have exerted big impact on efficiency of aquaculture raising. The seafood products of Vietnam are also facing fierce competition from other countries in the world. Therefore, the assurance of quality, food safety and high competitiveness are urgent requirements set for the fishery industry.
In recent years, quite a few shipments of seafood from Vietnam have been given warnings from import countries due to unguaranteed quality, especially in terms of antibiotic drug residues in aquaculture products. This has put Vietnam at risk of losing many major markets.
What is the reason for this?
The aquaculture in Vietnam is still developing spontaneously. Industrial-scale raising method and safe raising procedures are not applied and controlled tightly. Raisers arbitrarily use antibiotics, plant protection agents in the treatment of raising ponds and disease prevention for fisheries. Additionally, cessation time for using antibiotics prior to harvest is not guaranteed.
On another aspect, the low product quality is partly attributed to the way that the seafood procurement processing and export businesses purchase and sell products. Raw shrimp of production household applying safety standards are bought at the same price as the ones of household not applying the standard. So for what reason do the households have to apply the safety standard?
The difficulties in capital, raw materials have not been removed, seafood businesses are now "dizzy" with the quality control charges?
This is absolutely right. The burden of various charges has put pressure on businesses, of which the most serious is the charge of food safety control. The costs for testing of finished products before export born by businesses have increased from 1.5 to 2 times on average. The test sample shipment together with inspection measures and procedures prior to export control made the shipments to wait for 7-10 days before export, which has incurred storage fee to the businesses. In addition, the tax on packaging, plastic bags, environment ... has cost businesses a substantial amount (US$ 0.1 / kg).
So, what should we do to manage the quality of aquaculture effectively and properly provide assistance to the raisers?
NAFIQAD is currently putting focus on the quality control from businesses’ processing stage. However, problems usually come from the quality of the raising conducted by households. That some seafood shipments have been returned recently shows that the violation of food safety is not from food processing stage.
So in my opinion, we must first clearly define responsibilities for quality: Businesses are responsible for processing. And it is the state’s responsibility to conduct quality inspection from the raising stage (ie. the beginning one) instead of checking the quality of each lot of businesses as currently.
We have to conduct chain quality control. It involves reviewing supply chain to find out the weakest point that needs support. Then we will combine the two control systems and find the weakest that need continued support to complete. In fact, there are millions of households in aquaculture, especially shrimp and fish, the Ministry cannot handle it all. So companies and the state should support people in aquaculture through the development of quality control in sequence from beginning to raising, processing and production.
I got to know that Minister Cao Duc Phat has give direction on providing support to enterprises and conduct socialization of quality control. Besides granting licenses to 17 quality control departments, the Ministry will continue to grant more licenses to such departments.
As for export markets, besides support given to businesses to expand the market and market share, the Ministry is ready to respond to any acts of defamation of seafood in Vietnam. However, it is noted that companies themselves should do not create loopholes of which the businesses can make use to do the wrong thing such as dumping, causing the damage or disadvantages to Vietnamese market.
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