KARACHI, April 20: The ministry of food, agriculture and livestock (Minfal) has expressed the hope that re-listing of local fish processing plants in the European Commission’s approved list will take two to three months.

“We will try to remove the deficiencies at all levels during the fish off-season in June-July when the provincial government imposes ban on netting fish,” Secretary Minfal Ismail Qureshi told Dawn from Islamabad on Friday.

Based on the draft report received two weeks back from the EC he said that Pakistan has been de-listed, which means that the Europeans will not accept Pakistani seafood in future till deficiencies pointed out in the report are removed.

He said that the Minfal had been pursuing with the Sindh government, fishermen and exporters to expedite their efforts in removing the deficiencies.

“We will ask the EC to make a random visit to the processing plants, auction hall, boats after we are sure that everything is in conformity with the EC quality standards,” Ismail said. Meanwhile, Director General Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) S.Q. Raza claimed that as per draft report received by the department, Pakistan has not been de-listed from the EC’s approved list.

“It is the MFD, which has suspended the fish processing units as the EC had asked the department to de-list the non-compliant fish processing units until such time they remove deficiencies,” he said. The department has already suspended issuing health certificates to exporters since the ban came into effect from April 12.

He said that the MFD, after getting certain that everything at the harbour fulfils the EC requirement, will again provide guarantees to the EC so that exports could resume in the next few months. He, however, did not give any specific time as to when fish exports will get underway again.

The MFD had also sent the draft report of the EC to the Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA), processing units and Fishermen Cooperative Society so that they could deeply review it as per their respective responsibilities and could speed up their efforts in removing deficiencies.

Raza said that the fish products export to the European countries had come to a standstill from April 12. However, he said that the real impact of the EC ban will be felt when daily landing of kiddy shrimp will reach 80-100 tons from August to October of which majority of the catch is destined for the EU states.

However, sources in the fishing industry said that Pakistan’s name has been skipped from the consolidated list from April 12. Sources said the EC inspection carried out during January 22-26, 2007 had revealed serious deficiencies at all stages of processing, production and distribution of seafood products in Pakistan.

The January’s inspection visit was a follow up exercise to verify the implementation of the corrective measures contained in the action plan that Pakistani authorities provided in response to the recommendations of the inspection visit made in 2005. The January inspection mission observed that the corrective measures were only partially implemented.

In case the ban on seafood is not lifted Pakistan’s seafood export earning will decline by 30 per cent in the European market out of total exports of $196 million per annum.