The government has sent a new list of 14 shrimp and fish processing plants to Russia with a view to expanding the market share of Bangladesh, officials said.
"We sent the list at the end of last week. We have selected 14 shrimp and fish processing units after inspecting 23 such units in Khulna and Chittagong zones," Joint Secretary (Fisheries) of the ministry of fisheries and livestock (MoFL) Anisur Rahman told the FE.
"Among these nine are from Khulna zone and the others from Chittagong zone. We sent our proposal to the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance of Russian Federation (Rosselkhoznadzor) Thursday last," Mr Rahman said.
Principal Scientific Officer (PSO) of the Fish Inspection and Quality Control (FIQC) under the DoF (Department of Fisheries) Nittya Ranjan Biswas said: "Commercial Counsellor Noor M M Haq sent a letter to the DoF in this connection in April, 2014. We have thus decided to visit 23 fish processing plants out of 62 that got A grade (80 +) during renewal of licences this year."
Mr Biswas said licences of 62 fish processing plants of the country out of 68 have been renewed. We have visited most of the fish processing plants last month.
A seven-member committee visited the fish processing plants and examined different issues like maintaining standard from fish collection to finished products, internal quality control, laboratory tests, storage facilities, workers' wages, their hygiene, sanitation, effluent treatment plants and others.
Earlier, the MoFL sent reports on 31 local fish processing plants to Russia in 2010. But those are not valid now.
According to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Bangladesh and Russia, the DoF has to recommend names of fish processing plants for exports.
Mr Biswas said, "Exporters have to contact the Russian buyers and if the latter are convinced after visiting fish processing plants and recommend those to the Rosselkhoznadzor, then the Russian authority will consider allowing export of frozen food to Russia."
Recently Russian Ambassador to Bangladesh Alexander A Nikolaev at a meeting with Fisheries and Livestock Minister Muhammed Sayedul Hoque at his secretariat office expressed his interest to import more shrimp from Bangladesh.
At present, only five Bangladeshi companies-Bagerhat Sea Food Ltd, Fresh Foods Ltd, Apex Food Ltd and ARK Sea Food Ltd and Gemini Sea Foods Ltd-are exporting frozen foods to Russia.
Bangladesh exports about seven per cent of total frozen food exports to Russia. The annual exports to Russia are now worth Tk 3.0 billion to Tk 3.5 billion, Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) sources said.
Bangladesh exported frozen foods worth $ 65.19 million in July of this fiscal year (FY), 2014-15, compared to $ 60.83 million of the same period last fiscal, Export Promotion Bureau (EPB) data showed.
The government has set a target of exporting $ 731.08 million worth of frozen foods this fiscal.
