MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

China suspends fish imports from Brazilian company because of Covid-19 in the packaging

Examinations were carried out on 19 samples of fish exported from Brazil. The virus was found in the packaging of only one of them

China will stop accepting import orders from a Brazilian fish processing company for a week because the packaging has testes positive for coronavirus. Beginning on Sunday Monteiro Indústria de Pescados Ltda., was blacklisted by Chinese customs, a decision that was confirmed by the Brazilian Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.

Chinese customs had already warned that it would adopt this drastic measure – suspension for one week of purchases – in case of positive results for Covid-19 in cargo from a company for the first or second time. Last week China had already suspended imports from a seafood producer in Indonesia for a similar reason.

The Brazilian government has already been notified of the decision taken by China. According to Jorge Seif Júnior, the Ministry of Agriculture’s Secretary of Aquaculture and Fisheries, the Ministry is already

adopting the necessary measures, coordinated by the Department of Agricultural Defense. The Ministry was informed by the Ministry’s agricultural attachés in China of the decision.

Examinations were carried out on 19 samples of fish exported from Brazil. The virus was found in the packaging of only one of them. The contaminated lot was destroyed and the others released normally.

According to Pasta, it is the retention of cargo in customs and not a suspension. No test reports were available.