Marshall Islands Aims For EU Export Approval

Giff
Johnson, Editor, Marshall Islands Journal / RNZ
Pacific correspondent

Fisheries authorities and tuna
processors in the Marshall Islands are anxiously awaiting
the results of a recent European Union (EU) audit of the
country’s readiness to meet strict export requirements for
fish products to the 27 EU member nations.

For the
past six years, the Marshall Islands Marine Resources
Authority has worked painstakingly to establish a “Competent
Authority” required by the EU to monitor fish exports, train
its staff in laboratory work, fisheries monitoring and
enforcement, and pushed industry to step up facilities and
operations to meet international food handling
standards.

If the EU certifies the Marshall Islands as
a qualified exporter, it will open the world’s largest
seafood market to Marshall Islands tuna and other marine
product exports.

MIMRA was anticipating an audit by
the EU this year, after being told the EU was fully booked
in 2025. But a last minute change resulted in the audit of
MIMRA management operations in December.

MIMRA does
not expect a quick response to that audit and as of this
week, has received no report from the EU authorities, said
MIMRA Director Glen Joseph.

“We are anxiously and
patiently waiting a response from the EU,” he
said.

The two-week evaluation, which was done
remotely, was “intense” for a team of four MIMRA staff
focused on the EU compliance work and Forum Fisheries Agency
technical advisors who have assisted MIMRA, he
said.

The audit was the first step in a process toward
certification. It will also lead to in-country inspections
by EU authorities at a later date.

The big issues for
the EU are prevention of illegal, unreported and unregulated
tuna fishing, and hygienic and safe handling of food
products.

For prevention of illegal fishing, “chain of
custody is the key and MIMRA is ready (in this area),” he
said.

Particularly since the opening of the fishery
authority’s new headquarters in 2019, with its state of the
art monitoring and surveillance set up, MIMRA has integrated
satellite surveillance with hands-on boardings of vessels
and 100 percent monitoring of tuna transshipment operations
in Majuro to operate an aggressive monitoring, control and
surveillance operation.

Meanwhile, over the past two
years, MIMRA has been conducting numerous food handling and
hygienic workshops for tuna processing companies on Majuro
to help them step up their standards, as well as ongoing
spot checks of the several tuna processing
facilities.

In the process of preparing for the EU
audit, MIMRA has benefited greatly from the experience of
South Pacific nations including Papua New Guinea and Fiji
that are certified by the European Union for marine products
exports, Joseph said.

“This is why Forum Fisheries
Agency support was critical for us because FFA works with
PNG and Fiji and others that are EU-certified,” he
said.

Joseph said MIMRA has worked to avoid the
pitfall of a “yellow card” that some other islands
attempting to navigate EU requirements have
experienced.

A yellow card is a EU system for
identifying non-compliance and it can require numerous
remedial actions to change that status.

The various
fisheries initiatives that MIMRA has engaged in – including
the recent opening of its new annex facility that includes a
state of the art laboratory, one of the key requirements for
EU certification – and its partnership with EU and World
Bank supported fisheries work “reinforces the position that
we’re ready (for EU certification),” Joseph
said.

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