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Julian Manduca
Several food importers have been facing problems with their consignments during the past month, with containers held up and doubts and confusion about health and other certificates. The first days of EU membership were always going to cause uncertainty and the first month has been highlighted by a rush to import ‘new’ products and controversy over the customs clearance.
The full impact of imported foods on the market is still to be reached with importers and Maltese manufactures struggling to get used to the new situation. According to food importers who preferred not to be named, the Veterinary section was insisting on health certificates for certain products including cheese, milk and meat imported from the EU.
The situation seems to have been partially resolved now with the authorities declaring that EU imports do not require health certificates, but confusion still reigns and the Veterinary section is still insisting on a commercial certificate.
EU based suppliers are furious with the Maltese Authorities as they are being asked to fill in a commercial certificate to indicate the logos of each brand, the weight of each product and the EU approved factory number. Most of that information is usually available on invoices and the foreign suppliers see no reason why they should face added bureaucracy.
Attempts to contact the director of the Veterinary section, Dr Carmelo Lino Vella, proved fruitless, and questions sent to him remained unanswered at the time of going to press.
The Director General responsible for customs, Mr John Mifsud told MaltaToday importers should not be experiencing delays: “Imports of goods which are in free circulation in the EU do not even require a customs declaration and therefore it is hard to conclude what kind of difficulty these traders are experiencing.
“Customs requires solely proof of Community status of the goods to be established. In fact, no delays exist in the movement of containers where customs clearance is
concerned.”
However, asked by MaltaToday whether food products were being held up by the Veterinary office Mifsud replied: “I cannot comment on this as the Department does not interfere with Veterinary requirements. It is obliged, however, to implement Veterinary office’s instructions regarding certain imports and therefore cannot release the goods unless the Vetrinary’s approval is given.”
Director General Mifsud indicated the importers themselves could be to blame for some delays:
“During the first week of May many importers cleared their containers which had already arrived in Malta in April but did not make the necessary customs declaration at the time in order to avoid payment of levies.
“This obviously created a great deal of pressure on
our resources but in spite of this I feel we managed the situation successfully in the circumstances.”
Besides cheaper wine, milk and pasta, several other products are now cheaper including canned tomatoes. Much attention has fallen on the prospects of Maltese milk with supermarkets claiming that sales are about 15 percent down and Malta Dairy Products insisting no milk is being thrown away.
MaltaToday is informed that a week ago MDP increased the retailer’s and caterer’s profit margin by 1c7 per litre and 0c7 per pint. The retailers now enjoy a 2c profit margin up from 0.03c per litre.
The question that readily springs to mind is: did the manufacturers of pasta, milk, and some other Maltese products have to wait until they were hit by stiff competition with better quality products and prices to react by either reducing their prices or increasing the profit margins for the retailers?
Malta’s EU membership date has long been known and manufacturers cannot complain to have been taken unawares.
Importers are also irate and are asking why consumers have been getting a raw deal all these years while importers had to pay for levies and duties. The levies and duty, they point out, were set up to help the Maltese industries organise themselves better and offer better quality products, but now people are beginning to ask whether manufacturers were primarily concerned with making profit at the expense of quality and prices.
MaltaToday is, however, also informed that MDP’s decision to use only fresh milk instead of a mixture of fresh and powdered milk has caused sales to shoot up dramatically and more than made up for any shortfall in the sales figures for milk.
The cheap price of imported wine with prices for DOC wine as low as Lm1 per bottle and much cheaper imported pasta are expected to revolutionise the market. Maltese canned tomatoes are facing stiff competition from cheaper Italian imports, even fresh milk from Sicily is making inroads.
Anthony Cassar, a director of ‘Anthony Cassar & Son 1919 ltd’ run by his brother Albert said the company is importing fresh milk, ricotta, and other dairy products from a fully owned subsidiary of Parmalat called ‘Latte Sole.’
Cassar told MaltaToday the company is importing fresh milk daily “weather permitting.”
“We are not meeting the demand we have for the brand. The Maltese consumer now has an option for a premium fresh milk at a reasonable price.
“The demand from these consumers who want that something better and are prepared to pay for it, is bigger than our existing operation can handle. This is the biggest nice problem we have,” Cassar said.
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