May 19, 2015 — Many Vietnamese shrimp shipments have been rejected by its export markets due to too-high antibiotic residue level in the past four months, raising fear that market share of the country’s shrimp exports will be reduced.
According to Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) on Tuesday, in the first four months of 2015, a total of 36 shipments have been rejected into three major markets – the United States, Japan and the European Union (EU), as antibiotic residues exceed permitted level.
Among which, Japan rejected seven, the EU said “no” to four while the United States refused 25 ones.
Thus, in the first quarter this year, the export volume of Vietnamese shrimp into the three markets plunged sharply with a year-on-year drop of 56 percent to the United States, 27.6 percent to Japan and 3.1 percent to EU, reported MoIT’s Vietnam Industry and Trade Information Center (VITIC) on Tuesday.