Codex Alimentarius Commission (Codex) will meet in Rome, Italy from June 30 to July 7, 2003 with a weighty agenda that includes numerous issues that hold significance for aquaculture.

A draft code of practice will be tackled by the Committee on Fish and Fishery Products as well as sanitary certificate procedures, draft standards for mollusks and fish content definitions.

Other items on the agenda include draft maximum levels for lead in fish and reports of the Codex Committee on Residues of Veterinary Drugs in Foods.

The Committee on Food Import and Export Certification and Inspection Systems will consider draft guidelines for food import control systems, guidelines for equivalence judgments, guidelines for the exchange of information in food control emergency situations and a discussion paper on "traceability/product tracing" in inspection and certification systems.

The Food Labeling Committee will be reviewing organically-produced food issues, draft recommendations for labeling foods obtained by certain genetic modification/genetic engineering measures and a discussion paper on Country of Origin labeling.

More information is available from the Codex website at: http://www.codexalimentarius.net  
USDA Register Notice of the meeting can be found here.