Reacting to EU bans on Taiwanese seafood, five businesses were directed to suspend operations and 50 tonnes of local produce were targeted for inspection yesterday by the Fisheries Administration.
The action followed the Department of Health announcement on Wednesday that the EU had rejected 30 tonnes of Taiwanese fish and shrimp between August and this month. EU officials found the seafood had been contaminated with chloramphenicol, a carcinogen, and the toxic chemical nitrofuran.
Fish prices at local markets yesterday suffered, falling around 70 percent. But health authorities yesterday said that consumers should remain calm about exposure to the tainted produce, as a portion of the 30 tonnes rejected by the EU had been destroyed in Europe, while the rest had yet to appear in local markets.
After investigating the source of the contaminated seafood, health authorities said most of the produce came from suppliers in southern Taiwan.
All products to be exported to Europe in the near future would have to be strictly examined, said Fisheries Administration official Hu Sing-hwa (
To protect overseas markets, Hu said, the problem of seafood products being smuggled from China should be addressed more aggressively.
But according to health officials, Kaohsiung City suppliers implicated in the EU rejection obtained their produce from Tai-wanese deep-sea fishing vessels and fish markets in Singapore.
Hu said results of tests on seasoned eels and fish would be available within three days.
"We will in particular inspect the suppliers -- two fish farms in Tainan and Pingtung counties -- to learn more details about feed, medicines, and water quality," Hu said at a press conference.
Illegal use of additives or antibiotics can result in fines between NT$3,000 and NT$10,000.
In July and August, only one out of 145 products examined was found to be contaminated by proscribed antibiotics, Hu said.
There are around 30,000 fish farms in Taiwan, and random inspections of farms are carried out every two months.
Hu said NT$50 million would be spent on increasing the frequency and improving the accuracy of tests for chemicals.
There are only nine professional chemical laboratories capable of analyzing antibiotic residue in seafood.
Hu said the EU rejection might lead to a financial loss in the fishery sector this year. Taiwan produces about 350,000 tonnes of seafood a year worth NT$30 billion. About one-third of this is exported.
Huang Yeong-shin (黃永信), managing director of the Taipei Fish Market, said that the government should identify the culprits as soon as possible to not only pacify consumers but also minimize the negative impacts on the sector.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods