Under the new Ukrainian regulations, goods produced abroad have to be evaluated and approved by official Ukrainian agencies before being shipped and sold around the country. 

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said that Vietnamese seafood exporters will meet difficulties when exporting their products, because they were not been given much notice about the new rules coming into effect.

This means they have had little time to adjust their production techniques to meet new food hygiene and safety standards. 

Before the deadline, the National Fisheries Quality Assurance and Veterinary Directorate (Nafiqad)’s deputy director Tran Bich Nga sent a letter on the issue to Pyotr Verbitsky, the Ukrainian Chief State Veterinary Inspector.

According to the letter, Nafiqad is pursuing discussions with a Ukrainian partner to set up a joint mechanism to monitor imports and exports of seafood between the two countries.

Nafiqad has also invited officials from the State Committee for Veterinary Medicine under the Ukrainian Ministry of Agricultural Policy of to come to Vietnam to inspect Vietnamese seafood processors who intend to export their products to the Ukraine.

In the interim, Vietnam has asked the Ukraine to allow its seafood exporters to continue sending shipments to the country if they passed food safety and hygiene requirements set by the market. 
However, so far, the country has yet to receive any reply from their Ukrainian partners about the proposal.

Nafiqad has also asked the Ukraine to provide a full rundown of its guidelines relating to food safety and the quarantine of imported and exported seafoods to facilitate coordination between the two sides on the issue.

MARD said the Vietnamese seafood exports have to face similar obstacles in the US and Russia. Vietnamese pangasius or catfish exports to the US will be managed strictly under the Farm Bill, an agricultural law that is about to come into effect. Exports must also comply with new safety standards when entering Russia from May. 

The directorate said Vietnamese agencies have kept a close eye on the safety and hygiene of imported and exported seafoods and the country has signed bilateral cooperation agreements to this effect with Canada, the Republic of Korea, China, Russia, Cambodia and Thailand.

By the of June, licenses has been granted to 300 Vietnamese seafood exporters to export products to the EU, 442 to RoK, 444 to China, 238 to Canada and 30 for Russia.

In the first half of this year, Vietnam made nearly US$1.7 billion from seafood exports, with US$375 million coming from the EU, the single largest seafood export market, which accounted for 26 percent of Vietnam ’s seafood earnings.