Bangladesh pushing exports, but problems pushing back.

Bangladesh has turned increasingly to frozen food, especially shrimp, in hopes of broadening its export base. But the country has been dogged by quality problems, most recently just this past fall.

Some 42 consignments of frozen food items, mostly shrimp, were refused entry into the US in September by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on health grounds. The action caused a loss of about 200 million taka ($3.36 million) to the country's export earnings.

Market operators said the FDA cited two reasons--filth and salmonella. Out of the total 42 consignments, four were sent from Chittagong, two from Dhaka, while 36 were from Khulna. Market operators estimated that there might be 210 tons of frozen food products in those lots. Most of the refused items were frozen shell-on and black tiger shrimp.

The bad news came about the same time that a delegation of 20 members from the Bangladesh Frozen Foods Exporters Association (BFFEA) completed a six-day visit to European countries. The European Commission invited the BFFEA to participate in the forum for exploring bilateral and multilateral deals on trade, and was persuaded to select 59 Bangladeshi food products out of 128 items offered.

Frozen food exports for the first quarter of fiscal 2005 (July through September 2004) amounted to $79.2 million, with concerned ministries and departments plus the Ministry of Foreign Affairs--which had neglected the shrimp farming industry before--working to obtain trade deals with foreign buyers of the Bangladeshi products.

The BFFEA was counting on the European tour. "If the quantity of export of frozen food is increased, local producers and exporters may gain with increased export earnings," the group said. "Such earnings may be used for updating the technology and equipment in production of frozen food and processing them for export. Some earnings may also be invested in projects for producing backward linkage items including food for fish for augmenting export earnings of the country."

But when news broke about the US rejection of Bangladeshi shrimp the BFFEA disputed the report and said it could be a case of detention, not outright refusal. "We are not aware about such kind of news," one BFFEA source told the Financial Express. Government officials reacted similarly.

There had allegedly already been instances of cheating in export of frozen food items--such as underweight packages and stuffing nails and other metals into products--which remain a problem of the country's frozen food sub-sector. "Bangladesh is yet to comply with the basic requirement of traceability as per international consumers' demand, and this is costing us heavily," a market operator told the paper.