27 February 2017
Purpose
To advise industry of the in-transit cold treatment (ITCT) certification requirements for table grapes and citrus exports to Japan in 2017.
Summary and key points
Exporters, shipping companies and freight forwarders must consider the following when exporting ITCT citrus consignments to Japan:
- ITCT must start in Australia and finish prior to arrival in Japan.
- Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) will reject consignments that require the continuation of cold treatment in Japan.
- Authorised officers and exporters must be aware of shipment durations and ensure that the chosen treatment schedule will be completed prior to arrival in Japan.
- ITCT consignments with multiple time gaps or time gaps greater than four hours may be rejected by MAFF.
- If there are any data issues that arise at any point, an explanation of the issue should be included when submitting the data to the Plant Exports National Documentation Hub (NDH).
- If more than one container is included on a phytosanitary certificate, it is preferable that the same cold treatment schedule applies to all containers to avoid delays during certification.
- For Japan ITCT consignments, the RFP must have the print indicator set to Manual (M) the print location as ME3 and treatment details must be left blank.
- Remote printing of certificates is not permitted and certificates will not be issued until the treatment details have been entered by an NDH officer into the request for permit (RFP) following assessment of data.
Background
All table grapes and citrus exports to Japan must comply with the standards stipulated in the agreements (protocol) between the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources and the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Japan.
Responsibilities
Exporters and shipping companies requesting certification for ITCT consignments of table grapes and citrus fruit to Japan must meet the following documentation requirements:
- Documentation and data downloads must be sent to the Plant Exports NDH.
- Shipping lines must email a weekly ‘pre-alert / vessel summary report’ by COB Thursday to the NDH. This summary report must include the estimated date of vessel arrival, container details and the approximate date of when the data downloads will be sent for assessment.
- NDH – Melbourne will assess cold treatment data on the same day if it is received by 12:00 pm. Any data arriving after 12:00 pm will be assessed the next business day.
- Emails to the NDH must state in the subject line one of the following options:
| Raw treatment data | ‘ITCT Japan – [Vessel name] – Completed CT containers’ |
| Pre-alert / vessel summary report | ‘ITCT Japan – [Vessel name] – Vessel summary report’ |
| Consignment issues | ‘ITCT Japan – [RFP number, Container number] – Consignment issue’ |
| Calibration records | ‘ITCT Japan – [RFP number, Container number] – Calibration record’ |
The NDH is responsible for processing and endorsing treatment temperature data, and emailing copies and posting originals of the phytosanitary certificate, calibration certificate and endorsed treatment temperature data to the Australian Embassy in Japan for presentation to MAFF.
Work plan and protocols
The work plan and protocols can be found in the Documents section on the Manual of Importing Country Requirements (MICoR) Plants website.
Contact information
For any inquiries regarding data assessment reports, please contact the Plant Exports National Documentation Hub at Plant Exports NDH and include “ITCT Japan” in the subject line.
The Australian Embassy in Japan should only be contacted if MAFF have any issues with the phytosanitary certificate and/or calibration certificate endorsed by the department.
If you have any questions regarding this IAN, please email the Horticulture Exports Program.
Dr Chris Parker
Assistant Secretary
Plant Export Operations