Russia eases export restrictions
Two of 11 Chilean processing plants which had been banned from exporting seafood to the Eurasian Economic Union (Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Kyrgyzstan and Armenia) have now been granted export approval, following a decision made by the Russian Veterinary Authority this week.
On January 5th, the Chilean Service of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Sernapesca) received a report from the Russian Veterinary Authority (Rosselkhoznadzor), which was based on their visit to five exporting companies in the regions of Los Lagos and Aysen in October 2015.
According to the director of Sernapesca in the Region of Los Lagos, Eduardo Aguilera, “five plants were visited in the region, one of which was already authorized to export to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) and kept that condition, thus it passed the analysis well. Of the other four facilities who had been blocked from exporting to the EEU, two were approved and moved to the green list and can therefore now resume exports to the EEU without any problems.”
Meanwhile, according to Aguilera, one of the other two plants has now given up its ambitions to export to the EEU while the other "is working to make all the changes need in infrastructure and procedures that would allow it to export to the EEU”.
Further details of the Rosselkhoznadzor report will be released by Sernapesca in the next week or so.
Audit
The audit process performed by Rosselkhoznadzor started in November 2014. In this process the Russian authorities pointed out flaws in the analysis of radioactivity, antibiotics, histamine in fish and presence of wounds in the products that are exported, among other reasons why 11 Chilean processing plants were suspended from exporting to the UEE.
Afterwards, Sernapesca met the affected plants in order to explain the improvements that should be considered to satisfy the Russian authorities. In this last inspection, the Russian authorities also reviewed the procedures and protocols of Sernapesca.
