Hanoi (VNA) - The American Food and DrugAdministration (FDA) has cancelled the import licences of 679 Vietnamese foodand beverage manufactureres that did not re-register with the agency asrequired, or did so without following current procedures.

TheVietnam Trade Office (VTO) in the United States has reminded domestic exportfirms to check the validity of their business codes before shipping food andbeverage products for human and animal consumptioninto the US.

According to recent FDA data, beforethis re-registration requirement, Vietnam had a total of 1,485 enterpriseswith valid business numbers provided by the FDA; however, this number has currently dropped to 806.

Dao Tran Nhan, head ofUS-based VTO, said that under US law, all foreign firms exporting food andbeverages for people and animals into the US market must re-register every twoyears. This included registering their manufacturing facilities andrepresentatives in the US so that they could be issued with a newvalid business code. This task needed to be completed before the shipmentarrives in the US.

Since 2017, the FDA has changed the method of verification forissuing new business codes and established further regulations. For example,after being designated by the manufacturing facilities and registered with theFDA, the firm’s representatives in the US must send a letter ordocument to the FDA confirming their authorisation to represent a Vietnamesemanufacturing facility in the US.

If the FDA does not receive this letter or document, there-registration is considered incomplete and the business code will becancelled.

Shipments by Vietnamese firms that are unaware that their FDAbusiness codes have been revoked will be refused entry to the port.

Further, companies proceeding with goods delivery without validregistration will be considered violating the law and may be subject tocriminal or other severe penalties under the United States’ Food, Drug andCosmetic Act.

Data provided by the General Department of Vietnam Customsreported that in 2016 the country’s export turnover to the US hit 38.5 billion USD, growing 15 percent compared with the previous year andaccounting for 22 percent of the country’s total import-export turnover.

Eight types of product exported to the US earned over 1billion USD for the country in 2016. Textiles and garment shipmentswere at the top with an increase of five percent from a year ago to 11.5billion USD, accounting for nearly 30 percent of Vietnam’s total export turnover to the US.-VNA