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Australia and the Philippines signed a terms of reference agreeing to a paperless certificate exchange beginning on 1 March 2019. This means that from 1 March 2019 paper certificates will no longer be generated and electronic certificates will be sent directly the Philippines government to clear edible meat, dairy, horticulture and grain product.

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From the 21st March the Department of Agriculture and Water Resources (the department) will begin an electronic certification (eCert) exchange with the European Union’s (EU) Trade Control and Expert System (TRACES) for Bovine and Ovine meat exports from Australia to the EU. The exchange does not include EU ship stores or EU transit certificates. In order to meet TRACES requirements, some extra information will be required when raising a request for permit (RFP) through the export documentation system (EXDOC).

You will be required to provide the Consignee TRACES identification Number (ID) for the Consignee in the EU. If you do not know the Consignee TRACES ID you should contact your EU Consignee/Importer and ask them to provide this, or use the use the following link to the TRACES website to search for the TRACES ID . Meat RFP’s to the EU will not be to progress to complete status (COMP) without the Consignee TRACES ID being provided.

The Consignee TRACES ID will be checked by EXDOC and will need to match exactly with what is recorded in the EU TRACES system; if it does not match exactly the RFP will not progress to COMP.

EU Compliment code (CN Codes) are required to be provided in the RFP. These are used in a similar way to ‘Process Category Codes’ for shipments to the United States and ‘Import Authority Codes’ for Canada. The CN codes will need to be entered into the RFP the same way as a process category or an import authority code would be. Your software supplier will be able to assist you in identifying the correct field in the RFP to enter this information.

A list of CN codes and their descriptions are provided on attachment A. It is essential that you carefully select the correct CN code to use against your product details in the RFP. Failure to provide the correct codes may lead to your Certificate being rejected in the EU TRACES system. This may result in a replacement certificate needing to be issued which may incur a replacement certificate charge. For example using a CN code that indicates frozen product but is provided in an RFP with chilled product, this would cause a rejection.

With the introduction of the CN codes, the selection of the Nature of Commodity and Treatment Type must now match the product and the CN code description. If you are sending product that is boneless beef your nature of commodity and treatment type should represent this. For example Nature of Commodity selected as cuts with the Treatment Type selected as deboned. The CN code would then need to match these selections.

All other requirements for raising a meat RFP to the EU remains the same, and a paper certificate will continue to be issued in parallel with the eCert message. The paper will continue to be issued until both the department and the EU agree to the removal of paper.

The new functionality mentioned above should currently be available in your software. If you believe you do not have access to the above functionality, please contact your software provider for information on upgrading your software.

If you have any questions on the on the eCert TRACES exchange please contact the eCert administrator inbox at eCert Administrator

The above product type has been end dated in EXDOC. When a client tries to use PP it will error in EXDOC and they must be advised to use the appropriate product type for the species. For example: PCP (chicken meat products) PDP (duck meat products).

If an amendment to an existing RFP with product type PP is required, please refer the enquiry to your local regional office.

Effective 20 December 2013 and in reference to meat notice 2013/12.

Port-of-entry testing by the Russian Federation has recently detected the HGP trenbolone acetate in beef products. This indicates that one or more Australian establishments are not adequately managing requirements for that market.

The Department of Agriculture and Water Resources can only certify exports of meat products where appropriate systems are in place to give the department confidence that relevant importing country requirements are satisfied. These recent port-of-entry detections have raised concerns about sourcing programs developed by individual establishments. To rectify this, the department and industry have agreed to increased and improved verification of sourcing programs in export meat establishments supplying the Customs Union countries.

Exporters would be strongly advised to re-divert product on the water from the Russian market should it present a risk in regard to trenbolone.

When raising RFPs through EXDOC, the exporter is required to provide an exporter declaration to the effect that the products have not been treated with trenbolone acetate or zeranol. This is mandatory for all exports of Beef meat cuts to Russia - “Product has not been treated with trenbolone acetate or zeranol”

From Monday 18 November 2013 new fields will be mandatory for all meat RFPs, please ensure your software provider will have an update available for you first thing Monday morning.

Your software must be updated with the new fields prior to attempting to lodge/amend any meat RFPs.

The new fields will be for the following statements:

1. Do you have effective measures in place to ensure that the information contained in this request for permit is accurate and complete? [Y or N]
2. Do you have effective measures in place to ensure there is a sound basis for the information provided in this permit application? [Y or N]

Note: For criminal penalties applying to persons who make false or misleading statements to a Commonwealth entity see the Criminal Code Act 1995, Part 7.4 (false or misleading statements).

Q1. Error if answer is “N”

RFP is not permitted if you do not have effective measures in place for the information provided - please contact Department of Agriculture and Water Resources.

Q2. Error if answer is “N”

RFP is not permitted where information is not accurate or complete - please contact your local DAFF office.

All RFPs for meat to China from 1 August 2013 must include a storage establishment number and date range of storage within each RFP line item. This information should be provided in the same manner as is currently provided for slaughter and pack establishments within an RFP.

The old template and the old AQIS watermarked security paper will no longer be used for amendments to certificates originally printed in this form.

The new certificate template M490 that was implemented on 1 August 2013, will be issued as the replacement certificate and will require the storage establishment number and date range of storage information to be provided.

For further information please contact your local regional office.