Vietnam - Fruit, vegetable exports to EU suspended from licensing

The Plant Protection Department under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has recently suspended licensing for 15 different types of fruits and vegetables for export to the EU, while the importing market has yet to announce any prohibitions.

The ban has panicked a large number of fruit and vegetable exporters, since they have inked many export contracts, and the products which are ready for shipment will now have to pile up in the warehouses.

“I was stunned to learn of the news that some of my vegetables are now banned from being exported,” said Ngoc, an overseas Vietnamese living in the Netherlands, who runs a large vegetable farm in Vietnam.

Ngoc has deployed European safety standards on her 2-hectare farm in the Mekong Delta city of Can Tho, and has planned to expand the area by five times, as well as set up two more deep freeze storage units, as her exports are favored by Dutch consumers.

All these plans have been put on hold thanks to the prohibition, said Ngoc.

“What is most harmful is that customers will switch to buying from Thailand or Malaysia if supply from my farm is obstructed,” she said worriedly.

Similarly, Tran Danh Manh, chief of the Ho Chi Minh City-based Dat Vinh Co, said the company has purchased batches of grapefruits from farmers in the Mekong Delta, but cannot ship them to the EU.

“We do not know why, and for how long, the licensing is suspended, as well as how to solve the problem,” lamented Manh.

With the company exporting a total of 10,000 tons of grapefruits to the EU on an annual basis, the suspended export will cause great damage for him, he added.

Meanwhile, Mai Xuan Thin, director of the Rong Do Co, said his company has only received the information from the Plant Protection Department.

“We do not know whether or not the EU really banned all of these Vietnamese fruits and vegetables,” said Thin.

“If there is indeed a prohibition, the department should state clearly what particular types are banned, rather banning on the whole.”

Suspending exports to avoid banning

Nguyen Huu Huan, deputy head of the Plant Protection Department, said many export batches of Vietnamese fruits and vegetables to the EU have been announced as violating safety standards, and failing to pass quarantine tests, as they have been contaminated with microorganism and other diseases.

“During the two months between June 1 and July 31, 2011, 50 out of 63 exporters were detected with such violations,” he said, citing the department’s figures.

Consequently, the Directorate General for Health & Consumers under the European Commission announced that if five similar cases were detected after January 15, 2012 the EU would place a complete ban on Vietnamese fruit and vegetable exports, he added.

“Therefore, the department has announced that 15 commodities which have a high likelihood of breaching the standards will be suspended from obtaining a license to be shipped to the EU,” said Huan.

“Despite the suspension and tightened checkups, two other cases have recently been discovered, which means there are only three violations left before Vietnamese fruits and vegetables will never be able to enter the EU market.”

However, exporters said the department should not provide the ban for the entire sector.

“It is unreasonable to count the exporters with adequate sources of materials as being at the same level of those buying from dubious origins for exports,” the director of a fruit exporter said.

For his part, Huan also admitted that most of the violators are small businesses with a small amount of fruits and vegetables shipped.

Meanwhile, Diep Kinh Tan, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, demanded that the Plant Protection Department foster monitoring on exporters with unclear sources of materials, and provide assistance to those with safe-certificated material areas.

“The department should also clarify the particular commodities banned by the EU, rather than stating generally as ‘fruits and vegetables’,” he urged.

Tuoi Tre

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