The Chilean government will send a delegation to Taiwan next week to discuss the presence of a codling moth larva in its apple shipment to Taiwan earlier this month and a compensation plan, a Chilean agriculture official said on Saturday.
The announcement was made some two weeks after Taiwan's government halted Chilean apple imports following the discovery of the larva in the apple shipment.
The delegation, to be made up of high-ranking agriculture officials, will deal with issues related to Taiwan's suspension of apple imports from Chile, Chilean Agriculture Minister Alvaro Rojas Marin said in a news release.
As low-priced Chilean apples are popular in Taiwan, it should be possible to reach an agreement soon, he said.
On May 4, quarantine inspectors discovered a live codling moth larva inside a Chilean apple in a shipment at Keelung Harbor and decided that the entire shipment, which included four containers with 4,992 boxes of apples, should either be destroyed or returned to the country of origin in accordance with quarantine regulations.
Chile is the second exporter of apples this year to be suspended from shipping fruit to Taiwan after New Zealand, whose Fuji apple exports were suspended on April 12 after a codling moth larva was found in a shipment at Taichung Harbor.
Council of Agriculture officials said that after the larva was discovered, Taiwan told the Chilean government that it would suspend imports until the Chilean government determined the reason the larva was present and implemented measures to prevent a similar occurrence, after which Taiwanese inspectors would visit Chilean facilities.
Rojas said that the Chilean government had probed the cause and was ready to discuss the measures it had taken.
He said that the apple found to have a codling moth larva inside was from an orchard in southern Chile that had since undergone pesticide treatment to kill codling moths.
He also said that agriculture authorities would look into the case thoroughly and mete out penalties to those responsible.
Chile is the country's second-largest apple supplier, accounting for 33.9 percent of the country's total apple imports, while New Zealand is the fourth-largest supplier, accounting for 12.3 percent of the total, local officials said.
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