Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities have suspended the operation of two seafood export companies for violating food safety rules, a government official said Friday. Nguyen Nhu Tiep, director of the National Fisheries Quality Assurance and Veterinary Department (NAFIQAD), said surprise inspections at Dai Tay Duong Seafood Processing Factory and Tien Giang Seafood Company had revealed numerous problems. The most serious was an inadequate boiler at Dai Tay Duong's factory that failed to cook some seafood products fully.
The state-run newspaper Dau Tu (Investment) reported Friday that NAFIQAD's inspection of Tien Giang had found the company could not show documents specifying the origins of some seafood products. NAFIQAD also found the company's refrigeration practices were inadequate.
NAFIQAD said it would temporarily halt export licenses for the two companies.
"We told them their operations can only resume when they fix their problems," Tiep said.
Dai Tay Duong and Tien Giang are among the biggest seafood exporters in Vietnam. Dai Tay Duong has a daily capacity of 200 tons of raw seafood. Tien Giang exports more than 5,000 tons of finished products each year.
Vietnam has strengthened its inspections of food products in recent years after several high-profile cases of inadequate food hygiene.
In March, the Egyptian embassy in Hanoi ceased granting catfish export licenses to Vietnamese companies after the Egyptian newspaper Al Ahram, the country's largest, recommended Egyptian consumers boycott Vietnamese catfish because of pollution in the Mekong River.
