In order to strengthen the safety measures implemented for the legal importation of shrimp into Mexico and thereby minimize the risk of introducing pests and diseases of economic importance, the Government of Mexico, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, operates a comprehensive strategy for the benefit of national fishermen and shrimp farmers.
Representatives of the National Commission of Aquaculture and Fisheries (Conapesca, by its Spanish acronym), the National Customs Agency of Mexico (ANAM, by its Spanish acronym), the Tax Administration Service (SAT, by its Spanish acronym), the Federal Commission for Protection against Health Risks (Cofepris, by its Spanish acronym) and the Ministry of Economy (SE, by its Spanish acronym) met at the headquarters of the National Service of Health, Safety and Agri-Food Quality (Senasica, by its Spanish acronym) with the head of the agency, Javier Calderón Elizalde.
The federal official explained that at the end of September 2023 Mexico was recognized as a Taura syndrome free zone for farmed shrimp, which allows protecting and facilitating the commercialization of products and by-products of national shrimp farming.
The declaration endorsed the country's sanitary status and allows imposing sanitary conditions on commercial partners to protect this productive activity, which has a value of more than 18,895 million pesos, he said.
He explained that the Agriculture agency ensures that the agri-food products that legally enter the country comply with the strictest health, safety and quality standards established worldwide.
To this end, he said, we have five federal laws that we must enforce in order to protect the national food supply, boost the competitiveness of Mexican producers and protect Mexico's international prestige as an agrifood exporting power.
Calderón Elizalde stressed that, in compliance with the Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (MSF, by its Spanish acronym) of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Mexico establishes science-based regulations to ensure the health and safety of food during commercial imports, without falling into protectionist and unfair practices.
He pointed out that the organization does not authorize imports from countries with the presence of quarantine pests and diseases, such as Taura, and in the same sense permanently monitors the sanitary measures of the production plants authorized to send shrimp to our country.
Senasica's General Director of Animal Health, Juan Gay Gutiérrez, announced that in a couple of weeks a group of veterinarians and biologists will visit Central American countries, with which Mexico exchanges aquaculture products, to re-verify the sanitary conditions of their farming units.
The national commissioner of Aquaculture and Fisheries, Octavio Almada Palafox, indicated that the accompaniment of different Mexican Government agencies is key to protect the activity of thousands of families whose main source of income is shrimp fishing and farming.
The meeting was attended by the head of ANAM, André Georges Foullon Van Lissum; the general attorney of Agriculture, Rosa Chávez Aguilar; the general director of the Ministry of Economy, Roberto Orbe Colón; the executive director of Special Programs at Cofepris, Verónica Berrones Zapata, and the central administrator of Foreign Trade Operations Auditing at SAT, Zynthia Magaña Martínez, among others.