Health Minister Datuk Liow Tiong Lai informed that the Cabinet is ready to have good debate over the sugestions by shrimp and cuttlefish exporters, affected by a European Union ban threat for not meeting its hygiene standards. He also told that a compilation of their suggestions has been made and would submit the list to the Cabinet for a decision.
It is sourced that among the proposals put forward by exporters is to have a ceiling price on their products for this period for the local market. Besides, there were other proposals for the Government to buy and dispose of their products through agreements with other countries, and that aquaculture farmers with bank loans be allowed to suspend repayments for the time being.
The European Union had threatened a total ban on shrimp and cuttlefish from Malaysia after random checks on nine exporting companies which shows their products lack in health standards and practices set by Europe. And to avoid such ban the exporters of Malaysia had stopped exporting to EU.
According to Liow an inspection team from the EU would be visiting on-site verification to see if the companies had complied with EU requirements based on the Malaysian authorities’ audit. Liow informed that nearly 27 percent of the complaints of exporters had been resolved and soon the government will take steps to upgrade the exporting rules and verifications of products.
