|
THE MRL INITITAVE
Globally,
governments in developed nations are putting in very con-centrated
efforts to ensure total health protection of their citizens.
For the ThirdWorld, therefore, trade in food products has
increasingly become subject toelaborate and stringent quality
control. Needless to say, tea in-flow into Europe is now
being subject to rigorous checks on Maximum Residue Levels
(MRLs).
The European Commission (EC) has, from time to time, issued
guide-lines/regulations governing quality of food items.
In recent years,MRLs have been undergoing frequent changes
requiring exports (serving theEuropean market) to remain
alert and track changes towards ensuringcontinued market
acceptability for their products.
Responding to the strict health stand of developed countries,
the In-dian tea fraternity has decided to take steps to
ensure very high health standards of its brew. The tea industry
has already started treading the health path at a very brisk
pace.
TRADE BARRIERS
India's tea exports to the countries constituting the European
Union (EU) have been facing increasing resistance from importers
who are keen to ensure that the brew conforms to stipulated
MRL standards. Germany, in particular, has remained an extremely
"MRL-conscious" importer and has, evidently, led
the regulatory movement within the EU.
While Indian tea exports have been taking place within the
EU's regulatory
environment for over 15 years now, a major point of inflexion
developed towards the end of 2002 following reports that
the EC was contemplating:
- Prohibiting
use of certain chemicals in agriculture.
- Consequent
re-setting of MRLs for such items as their Limits of
De-tection
(LoD).
This position was reiterated by the visiting delegates from
the German
Tea
Association (GTA) at the INDIA INTERNATIONAL
TEA CONVENTION 2003 |
held in March this year where it was stated that
Indian exporters should be aware that use of certain sensitive
items would be banned from 2003 onwards and a case in point
was 'Ethion'.
MEETING WITH THE EC
Having regard to the problems that would result from such
extreme positions, the ITA requested the Tea Board/Ministry
of Commerce to explore the possibility of approaching appropriate
authorities in the EC with two major objectives:
I]
To have clarity in respect of the regulations in place so
as to obviate disinformation emerging as non-tariff barriers
to trade.
II] Understanding the modalities as to how the Indian tea
industry could represent its case on chemical usage on an
on-going basis to the EC towards fixation of MRLs at reasonable
levels which would permit In-dian tea producers to sustain
economically viable operations.
The Tea
Board and the MoC responded by arranging a meeting at the
EC headquarters in Brussels on June 13, 2003 in the offices
of the Direc-torate General, Health & Consumer Protection.
A delegation led by Tea Board Chairman Mr. N. K. Das and
comprising DPA Mr. Sanjay Bansal, UPASI TRF Dr. Murleedharan,
Tata Tea GM (R&D) Mr. P. Ramakrishna and ITA Additional
Secretary Mr. M. Das Gupta was nominated for the purpose.
The EC's DG-SANCO (Health & Consumer Protection) team
comprised Principal Administrator Dr. Nolan, Dr. Drukker
and Mr. Luiz Martin Raza.
|
