Vietnam will apply new standards of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization to all processes of fishery development in the country in the first quarter of this year, an official said.
“The Code of Conduct for Responsible Aquaculture (COC) will apply. The new standards will step by step replace all of standards that have been applicable in Vietnam,” said Nguyen Tu Cuong, director of the Center for Fishery Consulting and Service under the Vietnam General Directorate of Fisheries.
Cuong, who previously served as former general director of the directorate, said the new standards are built on the fishery farming procedures dictated by FAO to ensure four key standards regarding food safety, environment, epidemics and social environment.
“This is the set of standards adopted by FAO after a long debate among governments, manufacturers, processors and traders of seafood in the world,” Cuong told the Daily on the phone on Wednesday.
Currently, seven different international organizations in Vietnam are issuing safety certificates for seafood products in the country, including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and GlobalGap.
Therefore, to avoid overlapping standards when the new set of standard is applied, the fisheries directorate and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development would integrate optimum criteria from standards of the above organizations into the new set.
Cuong added that while standard certificates from international organizations are issued at a cost of between US$5,000 to US$10,000, the new standard is free so it will be easily applied for all fisheries, especially Tra fish.
“If the new standards apply, the country’s fisheries sector in the future will not face problems like the recent red-listing of Tra fish by the WWF,” Cuong said.
