Fruits to the US will not be stuck from this week

Staff of the US Consulate in HCM City will return to working at the irradiation facility from this week, meaning the fruits will be exported to the US normally again after the period of "congestion" to the US of about three weeks.

Nguyen Quang Hieu, Head of International Cooperation and Communication Division under the Plant Protection Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the US Ministry of Agriculture agreed to send phytosanitary experts back to Vietnam.

However, because the US has strict regulations on ensuring the safety of its experts during the pandemic, so only by August 11, the US officially provided information on phytosanitary experts to the Plant Protection Department to do procedures and requested the destination asNoi Bai international airport and hotel arranged by the US Embassy in Vietnam.

While waiting for US experts to come to Vietnam, the Plant Protection Department still tried to work with the US Embassy in Vietnam and propose them to allow the embassy staff to continue to monitor the handling of fruits to export fresh fruits to this market, which has been approved.

"The staff of the US Consulate in HCM City will return to working at the irradiation facility from this week, meaning the fruits will be exported normally again," Hieu said.

Previously, since March when the Covid-19 pandemic was complicated, the US asked its staff to return home, including staff of the US Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service(APHIS).

APHIS is the unit in charge of quarantine and monitoring of the irradiation process at Son Son Irradiation Plant in HCM City. This is also the only irradiation plant in Vietnam authorised by APHIS.

After the APHIS staff returned home, the US Embassy in Vietnam was authorised to monitor the irradiation but they only worked two hours a day and because this was not their expertise, from August 7, they have not conducted quarantine. Since then, the irradiation has stalled and fruit exports to the US have stalled.

Ngo TuongVy, Deputy Director of Chanh Thu Fruit Import and Export Company, said recently, orders to US partners had to stop because there were no APHIS staffconducting the quarantine of fruits.

"If this situation persists, customers will be short of products from our company for too long, and they may switch to buy from other partners. Thus, the risk of losing customers is very high,"said Vy.