Fish Inspection Ordinance '07 finalised

FE Team | Published: August 22, 2007 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

Doulot Akter Mala
The government has finalised the Fish and Fish Products Inspection and Quality Control Ordinance-2007 in fulfillment of one of several compliance issues.
The Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock in an inter-ministerial meeting Sunday finalised the policy ahead of a visit by a European Commission (EC) inspection team in the country, a government source said.
The EC team from the Food and Veterinary Office in Brussels is scheduled to arrive in Dhaka next October to monitor the food safety standard of country's fish processing plants and testing laboratories.
The government has made the new ordinance through amendment of the one adopted in 1997 aiming to comply with the international food safety directives.
It has included the compliance issues set by international buyers. The new ordinance also addressed different non-tariff barriers.
The government has also assigned a technical committee to scrutinise the ordinance by this week, before placing it to the law ministry for vetting.
"The ministry has initiated the move to ensure that the quality of fish products is maintained for boosting frozen foods export to the European Union," a senior official of fisheries and livestock ministry said.
The EU, the largest buyer of Bangladeshi frozen foods, has been raising quality issues of the frozen foods during the last few years.
Last year, the EU has sent back a number of consignments of frozen foods for non-compliance of their food safety directives.
As per the new ordinance, entrepreneurs have to obtain prior permission or no objection certificate from the ministry of fisheries and livestock before establishing a new fish processing plant.
Currently, the total processing capacity of existing plants is 0.3 million tonnes a year, but they process only 50,000 tonnes of fishes.
The amended act specified the level of use of chemicals and minimum temperature for processing frozen foods.
According to the amended act, only licensed company will be allowed to sell fish fry to the shrimp farmers.
The act also reduced the minimum laboratory test fee by 50 per cent for detection of pesticide and antibiotic in fish products to encourage the exporters to take up the process before export. It also has withdrawn the monitoring, verification and auditing fees.
The amended act has reduced re-inspection fee to Tk 500 from Tk 2000 and sample testing fee to Tk1200 from Tk 2000.