Fiji Resumes Tuna Shipments To EUff

Source: Fiji Times

The first shipment of tuna for the European Union market is expected to be sent next month after the final approval from the EU.

This was confirmed by Health Ministry Food Unit head Jope Tamani on Friday.

In an interview with Fiji Times, Mr. Tamani said Golden Ocean Fish Ltd and Solander (Pacific) Ltd were the two companies that had complied with the requirements of the EU.

The Food Unit is responsible for getting a list of fish export companies to supply tuna to the EU markets. Mr. Tamani said the listing was a formalization of the facilities that were visited by food inspectors in September last year.

“The list has been forwarded to the arm of the EU that looks after food safety and the approval and establishment of these things,” he said.

“That had been done about four weeks ago and it will take them another four weeks to send the approved list. I have been in contact with them since then and the list will be ready by next week.”

He said Solander (Pacific) Ltd and Golden Ocean invested a lot to improve their company facilities to suit EU standards.

“Solander is a Fiji company and they are the ones who invested in their vessels. When all the others played the waiting game, Solander improved,” he said.

“Four of their vessels are approved and they are working to get the other vessels approved. Golden Ocean has two different facilities, one at Rokobili and one at Walu Bay. Rokobili was built specifically for the EU project. The state-of-the-art facility cost about $12 million to meet EU standards. They also improved their old processing plant and three of their vessels.”

Mr. Tamani said approval was given to fish export companies based on the level of compliance.

“Everybody was given equal opportunity to comply with the requirements and some of them did while others did not,” he said.

“We were even approached by some companies about not inviting the Food and Agriculture Organization officers because they knew they were not going to make it. Fiji Fish was one of them,” said Mr. Tamani.

Mr. Tamani said Fiji Fish had raised issues about not getting the complete list of things to look at during the improvement process.

He said if Fiji Fish claimed they had several EU visits before, then the company should have been well versed with the requirements of the EU.