The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has postponed sending inspectors to carry out an on-site audit in Vietnam, The Saigon Times reported last week.
The trip was scheduled to take place from 2 to 13 March and was aimed at ensuring the country’s inspection system for siluriformes fish, mainly pangasius, continues to meet the U.S. import requirements.
FSIS had already informed the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) under Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development about the postponement but did not provide any reason or new date for upcoming visit, the daily said.
Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) Deputy General Secretary Nguyen Hoai Nam said the decision by FSIS to postpone its audit is possibly based on concern about the coronavirus, which is spreading globally, according to the daily.
In November 2019, FSIS announced that Vietnam, Thailand, and China were eligible to export siluriformes fish, including pangasius and basa, to the U.S.
This will be the second on-site audit by FSIS following the first conducted in May 2018.
During that inspection, eight out of 13 exporters shipping the fish to the U.S. at the time and two farms were audited, according to a proposed rule by FSIS posted on the Federal Register in September 2018.
FSIS said the 2018 audit did not discover any deficiencies posing risks to public health. But it did find NAFIQAD inspectors did not recognize all the establishments inspected had failed to document their sanitation monitoring results in an adequate way, among a few other shortcomings.
The U.S. agency then sent NAFIQAD its draft audit report and demanded written responses from Vietnam, which had to indicate the actions it would take to improve its inspection system. After receiving feedback from Vietnam, FSIS concluded that all the issues identified by the auditors had been resolved.
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