Australian citrus exporters have faced setbacks in the recently reopened Vietnamese market due to rules that limit shipments to seafreight, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported. 

An access agreement was welcomed last month after Vietnamese authorities imposed a trade ban in January, but the ABC reported the deal covered airfreight for citrus fruit and grapes from eastern Australian states, as well as seafreight for Western Australia.

The Australian Department of Agriculture's Manual of Importing Country Requirements (MICoR) claims the conditions of recent permits issued by Vietnam Plant Protection Department (PPD) are inconsistent with agreed protocol import conditions.

"The Department of Agriculture is continuing to seek urgent and further clarification of these conditions," the department says.

"Exports are currently prohibited from Western Australia," it added.

Citrus Australia market access manager David Daniels told the ABC he was disappointed with the situation but hoped talks this week between Australian and Vietnamese officials would produce results.

"Like a lot of these markets new to developing quarantine systems, quite often there are teething problems when new policies are developed," Daniels was quoted as saying.

"It seems there are misunderstandings between our authorities and the Vietnamese authorities, the import permits, there've only been two issued so far, the permit conditions don't reflect what we agreed on.

"The agreed policy was pretty clear, in that cold treatment was mandatory for fruit from Western Australia and that other pests of concern from the eastern states of Australia would be managed through inspection alone."

He told the broadcaster the presumption was overnight freight by air.

"We are now seeing a translation of the permit that's written in Vietnamese, and to our knowledge the Australians are working hard to resolve misunderstandings," Daniels was quoted as saying.

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