01/14/05 Next step`s reopening Taiwan

Members of the U.S. apple industry have been working hard to resume export of its product into Taiwan, closed since last month after four reported detections of coddling moth larvae in U.S. apple shipments occurred. The latest process in the case occurred recently when U.S.D.A.'s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service finished its investigation on the matter, and sent the report to Taiwanese officials. WILLETT: Basically the report said that (the) packing house was compliant, the grower was compliant. And unfortunately, this is a sampling program and the packing house had the unfortunate experience of missing a single larvae and that's been the same situation we have faced in the last two detections. Mike Willett of the Northwest Horticultural Council says the big question now is what procedures must be put in place to reassure Taiwan enough to reopen its border to U.S. apples. Determining what those additional measures might be is the process that both U.S.D.A. and the apple industry is currently working together on. WILLETT: We're talking about getting a proposal completed by the end or middle of next week, and a meeting in Taiwan by the last week of January. Willett says so far, two packing facilities that had coddling moth detection were reinstated days prior to the Taiwanese ban, while a third facility awaits the outcome of talks between the U.S. and Taiwan before knowing when it can be reinstated in the program.