Bangladesh Food Safety Authority (BFSA) will discuss today (Monday) the next course of action regarding the testing of imported fishes for presence of toxic metals.
"We will sit on Monday mainly to discuss a way out to reduce the time for testing the fish as requested by the stakeholders, including importers," Mahbub Kabir, a member of the BFSA, told the FE.
Officials of the BFSA, the department of Fisheries (DoF) and fish importers will join the meeting to define their respective roles in this regard, he said.
There is no alternative to examining imported fish for hazardous heavy metal like lead and mercury for the sake of public health, he added.
In the first week of this month, the BFSA, in a letter, requested the customs houses to test the imported fish in government laboratories before releasing them from the ports.
Earlier, The BFSA detected high levels of heavy metals like chromium, lead and mercury in almost all types of imported fish in its test. "It is a serious threat to the public health," the letter said.
"Authorities concerned are specially requested to discharge the consignments at ports after examining the level of heavy metal (lead, chromium, cadmium and mercury) at the laboratories like Atomic Energy Centre, BCSIR or Fish Quality Control Lab at Savar," the letter reads.
However, importers fear that the long time taken to test a consignment would create a negative impact on the business.
When contacted, president of Fish Importers Association of Bangladesh Ashraf Hossain Mashud said the decision is impractical as it takes more than two weeks to test the samples in laboratories several hundred miles away from the ports.
"We don't disagree with the authority's decision to test the fish, but all the varieties of the imported fish do not need examination," he said.
Sources said Bangladesh imports several varieties of fishes, including ruhi, katla, sardine and shad, from countries like India, Myanmar, Oman and Thailand.
Most of the fishes are brought to the country via Teknaf, Chittagong and Benapole. On condition of anonymity, a DoF official said it is not feasible to test the fishes in laboratories in Dhaka or Khulna.
"Some of the fishes are brought in chilled container, while others are brought in frozen condition," he said.
The chilled fishes may remain fresh for a long time, but the quality of the chilled ones deteriorate fast, he said, adding that the importers will have to incur demurrage due to long time taken to test the consignment.
He also said the exporting countries should take all responsibilities to ensure the safety standard of the items.
When Mr Mahbub Kabir's attention was drawn to the objections made by the importers regarding procrastination, he said the authority cannot compromise on the safety of public health.
"We cannot allow poisonous food items by any means," he said.
Earlier, he told the media that the Atomic Energy Centre in Dhaka tested two imported fish samples and found that levels of lead and cadmium are higher than the acceptable levels of 0.3 miligram (mg) per kilogram and 0.25mg per kilogram respectively.
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