The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of the Popular Republic of China (AQSIQ) has passed the sanitary control systems implemented by the National Fisheries and Aquaculture Service (SERNAPESCA) in fishmeal and fish oil plants in Chile.

Following an inspection carried out in April and May this year, the authority authorized the 27 plants recommended by SERNAPESCA for exporting fishmeal and fish oil to the Chinese market.

AQSIQ released the approval document last week, which points out that Chile \"has established a series of measures for monitoring, verification and surveillance of waste, issuing certificates, etc., to ensure that the supervision is effective,\" informed SERNAPESCA.

It also stresses that the Service and the heads of the plants visited \"paid high attention to the visit, willingly cooperating with the Chinese delegation to successfully complete the inspection.\"

Three other Chilean plants are pending final approval, but must first be supervised by SERNAPESCA, who will verify whether the shortcomings identified during the visit of the Chinese delegates have been solved, before reporting their findings to the AQSIQ.

According to the Deputy Director of Foreign Trade of SERNAPESCA, Monica Rojas, the authorities will work on recommendations to improve the Chilean control system and to correct the specific deficiencies identified in the three plants.

Meanwhile, the national director of the Service, Jose Miguel Burgos, welcomed the positive assessment of the Asian authority.

\"This favourable assessment gives us an excellent precedent and gives us a very good start to open up the Asian market to other domestic fish products,\" he said.

Source: Analia Murias, FIS.com. Read the full story here.