EU Evaluating Philippine Smoked Tuna Productsff

The European Union is currently evaluating if the Philippines’ smoked tuna products will be given the chance to reenter the European market after these were banned some years back because of some concerns over their safety.

Ambassador Jan De Kok, head of delegation of the European Commission to the Philippines, said that they are now looking at the local producers’ problems and how the latter could again export smoked tuna products to the 25 countries under the European Union.

De Kok, in his meeting with reporters in neighboring Koronadal City last week, said that European countries wanted to help the Philippine economy by reducing the tariff, from 24 to 12 percent, on Philippine canned tuna export quota a few years ago.

But issues over the smoked tuna products’ safety has prompted European authorities to ban the products from the Philippines, a fact acknowledged by local authorities.

“The unacceptability of smoked tuna in the European market is hurting the tuna industry as a whole. We wanted the government to extend financial and technical support to the tuna industry,” said Ibrahim Guiamadel, chairman of the Regional Development Council’s Economic Development Committee in Region XII.

The RDC, he said, unanimously passed a resolution for the Arroyo government to step in and help in the reentry of frozen smoked tuna products to Europe.

Datu Tungko Saikol, regional director of the Environment Management Bureau, said the unacceptability of the smoked tuna products could be due to the ban on the “dirty dozen” as a result of the Montreal Protocol. The “dirty dozen” includes substances like dioxin and furan.

These substances, Saikol said, are present in smoked tuna products and are believed to be carcinogenic.

Marfenio Tan, president of the Soccsksargen Federation of Fishing and Allied Industries, Inc., said that the problem on the smoked tuna products started when the European Union discovered unsafe frozen smoked tuna products from other countries. Even Japan has reportedly restricted the entry of frozen smoked tuna products coming from local producers as the Japanese were worried over safety concerns, he added.

Tan said that the issue is posing a threat on the tuna industry, which he said stemmed from the foreign authorities’ “misunderstanding” of the frozen smoked process and products.

He said that local smoked tuna processors have established a sound Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point system for years and are producing safe food products widely accepted in the United States.

He pointed out that the US Food and Drug Administration has declared that both smoke processed and even carbon monoxide-treated frozen tuna products do not pose health hazards to the consumers and are thus acceptable for importation in the US.