Norway faces Chinese export restrictions

The Norwegian Food Safety Authorities (FSA) report that Chinese authorities have warned about banning imports of salmon from the counties of Sør-Trøndelag, Nordland and Troms from March 23.

Moreover, from April 18, the Chinese government will require guarantees in export certificates that any salmon imported from the rest of Norway are free of pancreatic disease (PD) and viruses that can cause disease infectious salmon anemia (ISA). The Chinese also inform that they will increase testing for ISA in fish imported from Norway.

The new restrictions will effectively limit Norwegian salmon exports - with about a fifth of Norway's salmon exports to China coming from the three banned counties last year.

The FSA reveals: "Discussions on ISA have taken a long time because China believes Norway does not follow the international animal health standards for trade made by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). They therefore believe that seafood products from Norway can be dangerous for salmonids in China.

"FSA has on several occasions sent documentation to the Chinese authorities showing that we meet these requirements. We believe that there is no danger of infecting Chinese salmonids with ISA virus because fish products from Norway go directly to the consumer."