The Taiwan Tilapia Alliance (台灣鯛協會) yesterday said it will take action to correct misrepresentations made by a South Korean TV show that portrayed a negative image of Taiwan’s tilapia fish-farming conditions.
On Oct. 25 the program showed footage of dead fish and empty boxes of antibiotics filmed at a farm near the Formosa Plastics naphtha cracker plant in Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮).
The show also said the fish was unworthy of its name, since it was raised in freshwater, not saltwater.
Alliance chairperson Tsai Chun-hsiung (蔡俊雄) said it will visit the Korean Mission in Taipei with government officials, invite Korean media and fish importers to visit Taiwan and also make a formal request to the show to correct the inaccurate reporting.
Tsai said the Seafood Watch — a program by the Monterey Bay Aquarium that helps consumers and businesses choose seafood for a healthy ocean — has rated Taiwan tilapia as “good alternatives,” and 11 Taiwan tilapia farms have been certified by the Aquaculture Stewardship Council, proving the good quality of tilapia raised in Taiwan.
However, after the show was aired, many Koreans are now afraid to eat the fish from Taiwan and fish importers want to refunds, he said, adding that he is afraid the inaccurate image will have a big negative impact.
The Fisheries Agency Director General James Sha (沙志一) said total output of Taiwan tilapia is more than 70,000 tonnes each year, about 60 percent of which is exported to countries including the US, Canada, Saudi Arabia and South Korea.
Taiwan tilapia is exported to South Korea as mainly frozen, he said, adding that the quantity exported between January and September amounted to 4,122 tonnes, accounting for about 13 percent of total exports and 8 percent of total output.
South Korea is too cold to raise tilapia, so the price of imported tilapia from Taiwan has been higher, Sha said, adding that although other southeast Asian countries have expressed interest in working with Taiwanese fish breeders to get a share of the market, they were not able to gain quality certification — which proves the quality of the tilapia raised in Taiwan.
He said the government makes regular, non-scheduled inspections every year, along with Korean customs and health management departments, with the return rate of exports to South Korea about 10 percent, meaning the image depicted by the television show is biased.
ECHOVIRUS 11: The rate of enterovirus infections in northern Taiwan increased last week, with a four-year-old girl developing acute flaccid paralysis, the CDC said Two imported cases of chikungunya fever were reported last week, raising the total this year to 13 cases — the most for the same period in 18 years, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday. The two cases were a Taiwanese and a foreign national who both arrived from Indonesia, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said. The 13 cases reported this year are the most for the same period since chikungunya was added to the list of notifiable communicable diseases in October 2007, she said, adding that all the cases this year were imported, including 11 from
Prosecutors in New Taipei City yesterday indicted 31 individuals affiliated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) for allegedly forging thousands of signatures in recall campaigns targeting three Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) lawmakers. The indictments stem from investigations launched earlier this year after DPP lawmakers Su Chiao-hui (蘇巧慧) and Lee Kuen-cheng (李坤城) filed criminal complaints accusing campaign organizers of submitting false signatures in recall petitions against them. According to the New Taipei District Prosecutors Office, a total of 2,566 forged recall proposal forms in the initial proposer petition were found during the probe. Among those
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) today condemned the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the Czech officials confirmed that Chinese agents had surveilled Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) during her visit to Prague in March last year. Czech Military Intelligence director Petr Bartovsky yesterday said that Chinese operatives had attempted to create the conditions to carry out a demonstrative incident involving Hsiao, going as far as to plan a collision with her car. Hsiao was vice president-elect at the time. The MAC said that it has requested an explanation and demanded a public apology from Beijing. The CCP has repeatedly ignored the desires
The Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant’s license has expired and it cannot simply be restarted, the Executive Yuan said today, ahead of national debates on the nuclear power referendum. The No. 2 reactor at the Ma-anshan Nuclear Power Plant in Pingtung County was disconnected from the nation’s power grid and completely shut down on May 17, the day its license expired. The government would prioritize people’s safety and conduct necessary evaluations and checks if there is a need to extend the service life of the reactor, Executive Yuan spokeswoman Michelle Lee (李慧芝) told a news conference. Lee said that the referendum would read: “Do