Thailand to hold talks with Australia to lift ban on fresh shrimp products

BANGKOK, January 13 (TNA) - ]Thai authorities will soon negotiate with their Australian counterparts to seek Canberra's quick action to lift a temporary ban on Thai shrimp exports. Thai Commerce Minister Apiradi Tantaporn told journalists on Friday that her ministry's Department of International Trade Promotion has learned from the Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives' Department of Fisheries and National Bureau of Agricultural Commodity and Food Standards that they are preparing for negotiating with the Australian side for the revocation of the six-month ban as soon as possible. Apiradi said that her ministry will closely monitor impacts from the ban and updates from the issue from agencies concerned in both the Thai public and private sectors. The minister's remarks followed an official report from the Thai Commerce Ministry's foreign trade promotion office in Sydney, notifying that the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources issued the six-month ban recently, taking effective from January 9, 2017, covering fresh shrimp products from Thailand and other countries According to the Thai commerce minister, the Australian emergency measure, which was based on Canberra's biological safety law, followed outbreaks of the white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in fresh shrimp produce, unprecedentedly detected by the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources in both local shrimp farms and natural water sources in the Australian Queensland State in early December 2016. The commerce minister acknowledged she has been reported by the Thai Frozen Foods Association and the Shrimp Association that WSSV is a major shrimp pathogen that normally occurs every year during seasonal transitions and in Thailand it is mostly found in the southern region. The commerce minister stressed although Australia is not a top export market for Thai shrimp produce, as most Thai shrimp shipments to the Australian market are cooked or processed shrimp products, amounting about 10,000 tons annually, Thailand yearly earns a high revenue from shrimp exports to Australia, where food safety standards are strictly enforced. Currently, Australia is Thailand's 5th largest export market of shrimp products, after the United States, Japan, Vietnam and Canada, with Thai processed shrimp exports to the Australian market during the first 11 months in 2016 alone reaching 31.06 million US dollars, a 15.04 year-on-year increase. (TNA)