On Sept. 28, the General Administration of Customs of China announced via its website [3] that fresh plums and apricots from Tajikistan [4] meeting the stipulated phytosanitary requirements would be permissible for import into China.

According to the GACC announcement, a total of seven quarantine pests of concern have been identified by China. These include the codling moth (Cydia pomonella), almond fruit wasp (Eurytoma amygdali), black plum sawfly (Hoplocampa minuta), European grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana), Hall scale (Mercetaspis halli), black peach aphid (Pterochloroides persicae) and the scale Rhodococcus turanicus.

Orchards intending to export fresh plums and apricots to China must establish and implement good agricultural practices under the supervision of the Committee for Food Security under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan and adhere to integrated pest management techniques to prevent or minimize the risk of quarantine pests of concern.

In accordance with the International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures No. 6 (ISPM 6), the Committee for Food Security must develop a management plan for the quarantine pests of concern and conduct year-round surveillance of orchards.

The processing, packaging, storage and shipment of fresh plums and apricots destined for China must be carried out under the supervision of the Committee for Food Security or its authorized personnel. Packing facilities must be clean and hygienic, with paved floors and designated areas for raw materials and finished products.

Areas designated for processing, treatment and storage must be relatively independent, reasonably laid out and appropriately separated from residential areas. During packing, the fruit must be manually sorted, graded and cleaned to remove diseased, insect-infested, rotten or deformed fruit, as well as branches, leaves, other plant debris, soil and other contaminants.

In the first two years of exports, the Committee for Food Security is required to take a random sample of 2% of fresh plums and apricots bound for China to check for the presence of pests of concern. The minimum sample size should be 1,200 fruits, with at least 60 of them cut open for inspection. The sampling rate will be lowered to 1% if there are no quarantine problems for two years.

If any live quarantine pests of concern are detected, the consignment shall not be exported to China. Depending on the circumstances, fresh plum and apricot exports to China from the relevant orchards and packing facilities may also be suspended for the remainder of the export season.

Image: Pixabay

This article was based on a Chinese article. Read the original article [5].