Inspections of fish plants in Taiwan discovering failure to meet Russian veterinary and sanitary requirements

According to the Regulation on the uniform procedure for carrying out joint inspections of plants and sampling of goods (food products) subject to veterinary control (survey) approved by the Decision of the Customs Union Commission of 18 October 2011 No. 834 the Rosselkhoznadzor forwarded to Veterinary Service of Taiwan (China) the Final Report on the mission of Rosselkhoznadzor specialists held from 23 June to 6 July 2013 at Taiwanese (Chinese) plants producing fish products and seafood of deep sea fishing and aquaculture and seeking to export their products into the territory of the Customs Union state members. The aforementioned Report was drawn up with due account for comments of the Taiwanese Veterinary Service to the preliminary report, according to Russia’s vet authority.

The inspection results showed that the Taiwanese party did not meet veterinary and sanitary requirements and standards of the Customs Union and the Russian Federation; besides, there was no adequate control of received for storage saury (receipt for storage of de-identified fish with no confirmation of its origin and safety) on the part of the Taiwanese competent body.

Such circumstance can constitute a real threat to health of Russian customers. In this context and in view of a risk level and in accordance with precaution principles (SPS agreement, point 7, Article 5) temporary restrictions on saury import into the Russian Federation are imposed until the Taiwanese party takes necessary measures for provision of an adequate safety level in case of saury imports into the Russian Federation.