The Hindu Business Line : `EU team assessing seafood units'

A team from European Commission's Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) is on a visit in the country to carry out assessment of units exporting marine products to European Union countries.

The office checks on compliance of the requirements of European Union food safety and quality, veterinary and plant health legislation within the union.

Two teams have been formed and are visiting the units (on a random basis) certified by the Export Inspection Council (EIC) of India, the official export certification body of the country set up by the Union Government , said Mr Vijay Kumar, Additional Director, EIC.

One team is visiting units in Kolkata and Bhubaneshwar regions and the other in Kochi and Chennai. The team to the South visited four units in Kochi and would visit around ten in and around Chennai, he told Business Line.

"This is an exercise they do to make sure that our units are exporting marine products as per their standards," he said. There were over 450 units that supply marine products to the European Union, he said.

Mr Kumar said under the European Union Trade and Investment Development Programme (European Union), the EIC laboratories would be upgraded with modern equipment to provide training and certification to Indian exporters.

Consultants from the EU have already visited laboratories in India, and have assessed the council's needs in the labs in terms of modern equipment and the process to purchase equipment has already been initiated.

There was also a plan to form a network of all EIC-approved labs to have an easier access to data maintained in the labs, he said.

According to Mr Kumar, a team of experts from EIC recently visited hatcheries in Thailand and Vietnam for a study on the antibiotics levels. "We also want our units to use less of antibiotics in our products," he said.

Other than food, the EIC was also concentrating on other areas. For instance, last year stainless steel utensils exporters from the country faced a major problem in Turkey.

Around 100 consignments of stainless steel utensils were held up at Turkish ports — the authorities first wanted a `health certificate' from an Indian Government body before the Customs would release the consignment.

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