According to a report by the EU Food and Veterinary Office (FVO), published on Wednesday 13 June, the official controls implemented by the Moroccan authorities on fishing products exported to the EU can be considered satisfactory.
The audit was carried out in Morocco from 4 to 14 December 2017 in order to “verify the control system in place for fishing products exported to the EU”. Official controls are found to be satisfactory.
European regulations on fishing products have been taken on board by Moroccan national legislation. Regulation ensuring the compliance of businesses with EU requirements, and procedures for drawing up lists of establishments authorised to export towards the EU are available and implemented in a satisfactory manner, the FVO report states. It points out that the relevant Moroccan authorities have the power, procedures and personnel to carry out the tasks relating to official controls in the fishing product sector. EU veterinarians have highlighted a number of failings but the system “entirely covers the production chain for fishing products and provides guarantees established by the export health certificate, in compliance with the requirements of EU legislation”. Also noted was the : - existence of an effective system for assessing the causes of RASFF (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) notifications; - the presence of laboratories for guaranteeing reliable results of analysis further to controls; - and compliance with Community requirements in the context of exports of fish products to the EU.
Morocco’s fisheries sector is made up of 16,333 small-scale fishing vessels, 1,777 trawlers and 304 freezer vessels. Moroccan exports of fish products are worth over $2 billion. In 2016, total fish product exports from Morocco to the EU amounted to around 265,000 tonnes (Eurostat source). Those exports were essentially cephalopods (55,000 tonnes), preserved and semi-preserved products (70,700 tonnes), fresh/refrigerated fish (7,800 tonnes) and frozen products (44,000 tonnes). Imports of fishing products from Morocco have been authorised since November 2006 by the European Commission. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)