MUMBAI, Mar 19: The European Commission has postponed the clearance of the proposed restrictive legislation intended to make stringent the norms for import of HPS groundnuts from India and other groundnut-producing nations. Further, the proposed legislation on EC Commission's new sampling plan has also been postponed.A decision on the matter will be taken up at the meeting of the Codex Alimentarius Committee scheduled for June 1999, said Indian Oilseeds & Produce Exporters' Association (IOPEA) chairman Pradeep Kotak in a statement. With this postponement, trading in HPS groundnut will continue with the existing conditions on aflatoxin and sample analysis, which are both effective and economical.
The postponement of the proposed legislation was possible through the sustained efforts of IOPEA, ministry of commerce, and other groundnut-producing nations like the US and Argentina, the statement added.
According to Kotak, the EC Commission's efforts to bring down the aflatoxin level has not found favourwith the Joint Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) formed by EU's Food Administrative Office (FAO) and the World Health Organisation (WHO). The decision was postponed as there was no significant improvement in consumer protection by lowering the limits from the existing 15 parts per billion (ppb) to 10 ppb, a stand taken by IOPEA and shared by JECFA and others. "
It is good to see that we have won the first round, but we will have to be cautious and vigilant, and a united stand will have to be taken by other countries," Kotak said.
It may be recalled that on February 20, the European Union had indicated that it planned to tighten the permissible levels of aflatoxin in HPS groundnut for human consumption and other non-edible varieties while also making the sampling norms more stringent.
The proposed legislation was subject to clearance from the World Trade Organisation. If passed, it would have been binding on all countries within the EU, and would have adversely affected the HPS trade from thesecountries. The decision to postpone the clearance of the proposed legislation may have taken into consideration the fact that none of the European countries produce HPS groundnut, and if implemented, it would have seriously hampered the groundnut imports in the European Union.
The major suppliers of HPS groundnut are Argentina, China, India, South Africa, USA and Vietnam. If the proposed EU legislation is passed, it is likely to halt completely the export of HPS groundnut to the EC countries.
Copyright © 1998 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
