Food exporters urged to register with DTI

Trade and Industry Secretary Manuel Roxas II has urged food exporters to avail themselves of the government’s accreditation program to avoid possible rejection of their shipments due to non-compliance with US and European Union market mandatory requirements.

He said out of 350 food manufacturers, traders, processors and exporters registered with the Bureau of Export Trade Promotion, only 96 have so far applied for the Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (GMP/HACCP) certification.

Of the 96, only 36 food manufacturing plants have been GMP-certified while 20 products have complied with HACCP standards.

Roxas pointed out that exporters eyeing a bigger share of the lucrative US and EU markets "should conform to these mandatory requirements otherwise their products bound for shipment will not be allowed entry to the ports of the two regions."

The US and EU are the Philippines’ major markets for processed food and marine exports, accounting for 32 percent or $439.31 million of the country’s total exports last year.

GMP and HACCP certificates were made mandatory requirements in 1995 for all fish exporting countries to the EU. The same regulation would apply to all food products bound to the EU by 2004.

Only yesterday, the European Commission adopted a temporary ban on the entry of all Philippine aquaculture imports to the EU markets. This ban, however, was due to the Philippine government’s failure to submit its annual Residue Monitoring Plan.