Indonesia bans Belgian food imports over dioxin scare

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia finally joined other Asian countries in banning imports of Belgian farm and poultry products to safeguard health and protect local agriculture from cancer- causing dioxin.

The Ministry of Health also ordered on Monday all retailers to remove Belgian food such as milk, eggs, beef, pork, chicken and animal feeding stuff from shelves.

The ministry said that the ban would not affect food imports from other European countries. It added, however, imports of farm and dairy products from the Netherlands, France and Germany should be accompanied with certificates to ensure that they are free from cancer-causing dioxin.

The ministry did not mention whether there was a penalty for violators to the ban.

The food scare over Belgian food products emerged in late May when Belgium announced high levels of cancer-causing dioxin in chicken and eggs spread to the country's pork, beef and dairy products.

The scare led many countries, including the Philippines, Thailand, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and Malaysia, to impose blanket-trade bans on European farm and dairy products.

Thailand's government even imposed a jail term up to five months as punishment or a 200,000 baht (US$5,405) fine to importers found violating the ban.

The European Union's executive body, European Commission, said it ordered its 15 member states to ensure that all potentially dioxin-contaminated products of food or feeding stuff be traced, removed from the market and destroyed.

Spokesman of the health ministry Mariani told The Jakarta Post on Monday the ministry ordered its directorate of food and medicine supervision (POM) nationwide to conduct random research on samples of imported farm and poultry products available at local markets.

"So far we have found no record on contaminated products," she said.

The directorate of animal husbandry said earlier that Indonesia's imports of Belgian meat were not significant.

"The health ministry, however, decided to proceed with its temporary ban to make sure that every party acts in caution toward the issue," Mariani said.

Data from the Central Bureau of Statistics shows Indonesia imported 1,121 kilograms of Belgian meat, edible meat offal and prepared or preserved meat in 1997.

Indonesia also imported 2,003 tons of milk, cream, milk products, butter, eggs and fresh egg yolks from Belgium last year.

Indonesia obtains most of its imported meat products from Australia and New Zealand. The country imported 16,000 tons of beef last year, over 80 percent of which was from Australia. (cst)