Indonesia aims to export shrimp to US again after radiation scare
Shrimp exporters in affected regions in Indonesia have to get safety certification before they can sell to the US, their biggest market
The Marine Affairs and Fisheries Ministry in Jakarta said on Saturday that exports to the US, the biggest buyer of Indonesia’s shrimps, could resume for companies based on Java island and Lampung province in Sumatra if they could obtain a safety certificate from the ministry to confirm the absence of the hazardous isotope Caesium-137.
“Shrimp exports to the US originating from shrimp-processing units outside Java and Lampung can proceed as usual,” Ishartini, head of the marine and fisheries product quality control and supervision agency at the ministry, said in a statement.
One company, Bahari Makmur Sejahtera (BMS), still could not export to the US as it was “on the rejection list”, Ishartini said, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in August detected Caesium-137 in its frozen breaded shrimp products sold in American retailers such as Walmart.
According to the ministry, 35 shrimp processing units in Java and six in Lampung would be affected by the certification requirement. The ministry-issued Cs-137-free certificate will be linked to an internal system of the FDA so that it would “expedite the customs inspection process” for shrimp shipments arriving in the US, according to Ishartini.
Indonesian officials also said the country had been “intensely” talking to the FDA on its proper controls, while Jakarta had also temporarily halted imports of scrap metal, a source of Cs-137 contamination in the shrimps. The isotope was detected in a metal processing facility in the Cikande industrial estate in Serang, next to BMS’ factory.