2008/906 Seafood trade and market access portal

By Natalie Dowsett, Damian May, Catherine McLeod and David Padula

The value of Australian seafood exports now exceeds $1 billion per annum and products are dispatched to various countries around the world (> 20 markets). To ensure Australian seafood can gain access to these markets it is necessary to demonstrate compliance with each country’s food safety and trade standards. The objective of this study was to establish a web portal service on technical food safety and trade rules of countries importing Australian seafood (existing and future potential markets). The information includes residue and contaminant standards, export certification requirements and tariff/customs information for international markets of importance to Australian Seafood CRC members.

The Seafood Trade and Market Access Database is an online database that has been developed by a team of technical and regulatory experts to support the Australian seafood sector to easily identify overseas market access requirements. The database provides information for key overseas markets on residue and contaminant standards, microbiological standards, preservative standards, tariff and import duties, export certification requirements, rejection and detention notification reports, and trade volume statistics.