Ecuador - Ecuador To Implement New Fishing Law

miércoles 15 de febrero de 2006

Ecuador, February 15, 06

Ecuador will be implementing a law for fishing and acquactulture products. This is one of the new action plans for Ecuadorian fishery to comply with the European Union’s (EU) regulation. This new action plan was submitted last month by Ecuador to the EU authorities.

If the new legal norm is ratified, Ecuador is expected to not have obstacles or restrictions to export its fishing and aquaculture products to the European market.

The initiative was carried out after the EU Health and Consumer Protection

Directorate General had issued a report containing more than 14 observations for the tuna and shrimp companies in Ecuador.

During the investigation of the sanitary conditions in the country’s 11 shrimp and fish processing plants, EU inspectors detected several flaws and urged Ecuador to submit a plan to solve the recorded observations within 25 days.

The reports sent to the EU also indicate that the Ministry of Foreign Trade, will implement a system of joint work between the National Institute of the Sea (INP) and Fisheries Directorate General (DGP) to monitor the sanitary conditions in the production destined to the European market.

The Ecuadorian Government pledged to update the inspection tools, the monitoring of the production change and the reinforcement of the health system control of the export batches.