Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Fri, 04/23/2010 10:51 AM
Indonesian edible fish products destined for European markets will no longer be subject to rigorous mercury detection inspections, an association says.
“Indonesia has managed to relax a European Union (EU) regulation — starting April 16. (Indonesia’s)
sea catches will no longer be subject to mercury inspections,” Indonesian Fisheries Processing
and Marketing Entrepreneurs Association chairman Thomas Darmawan told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.
The heavy metal detection requirement has been in place since 2006. The regulation was passed in 2006 after an EU commission team found that fisheries products imported from Indonesia and intended for human consumption spoiled quickly and contained high levels of histamine.
The inspections also revealed that Indonesian authorities did not carry out reliable inspections of fish, in particular to detect histamine and heavy metals, the 2006 Commission Decision said.
A letter sent last month by the Food Standards Agency, an independent government department with headquarters in the United Kingdom, said the European Commission proposed to revoke the 2006 Commission
Decision, which requires heavy metal testing on all imports of non-aquaculture fishery products from Indonesia.
“The Commission has now received appropriate guarantees from the Indonesian authorities that controls are in place to ensure products meet EU requirements as regards to heavy metals,” the letter said.
“Also, the results of import controls at EU Border Inspection Posts indicate that imports are satisfactory.”
Although it lifts a mercury testing requirement, the EU has increased the strictness of antibiotics testing on farmed fishery products from Indonesia.
It now stipulates that a minimum 20 percent of consignments be tested, up from 10 percent, according
to Thomas.
“The issue of antibiotics is actually an old problem,” he said.
“We actually have improved now. But maybe an [EU] inspection team found unsatisfactory results during their visit here last November.”
The FSA in its letter said that at least 20 percent of consignments of farmed fisheries products from Indonesia intended for human consumption would be subjected at Border Inspection Posts to sampling for testing for pharmacologically active substances, in particular chloramphenicol, metabolites of nitrofurans and tetracyclines (including tetracycline, oxytetracycline and chlortecycline).
According to Thomas, Indonesia exported US$146.6 million worth of shrimp, $34.29 million of tuna, $21.24 million of seaweed and $100.54 million of processed fish (excluding tuna and shrimp), to Europe in 2009.
Central Statistics Agency data showed that non-oil and gas exports to the EU stood at $2.59 billion in the first two months of this year, up by 37.8 percent from the $1.88 billion booked in that period last year.
