An audit team of the European Union Food and Veterinary Office (FVO) will arrive in Dhaka today (Sunday) to check whether frozen foods destined to the bloc meet safety standards.
"A three-member EU audit team will arrive Sunday to check hygiene and safety of total value chain of frozen foods from farm level to export," Ministry of Fisheries and Livestock (MoFL) additional secretary (fisheries) Anisur Rahman told the FE.
He said Bangladesh exports 60 to 70 per cent of total frozen foods to the EU. "So this visit is very important for us. We have taken necessary measures to fulfill the safety requirements ahead of the EU team's visit," he said.
The EU team will stay here till April 30. A briefing will be held at the Ministry and it will meet Department of Fisheries (DoF) director general Syed Arif Azad on April 20.
They will travel to Chittagong to have a meeting with the competent regional authority. They will visit laboratory, meet marine fisheries authorities and visit a fish processing plant and a vessel.
DoF's Fish Inspection and Quality Control principal scientific officer Nittiya Ranjan Biswas said as per their desire, they will visit a fin fish farm, traditional and semi-intensive farm and fish processing plants and laboratories at Chittagong and Savar during their stay.
He said they will visit veterinary and aquaculture medicine shops at Chittagong and fish-feed mills at Khulna.
The delegation is expected to take stock of the present situation of residue control in live animals and animal products and the control mechanism for veterinary medicinal products --measures seen as key requirements for export of shrimps to the EU.
The team will also inspect implementation of public health and residue control requirement in aquaculture products from grassroots level to production level so that hazardous agents or drugs cannot affect shrimps meant for export, they added.
The team will leave Dhaka on April 30.
Bangladesh exported frozen foods worth US$ 462.53 million in July-March period of this fiscal year (FY), 2014-15, compared to $495.84 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.
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