Ha Noi is determined to stamp out traditional and privately owned inner-city slaughterhouses that fail to meet hygiene and cooking safety standards before October.

Thinh Liet slaughterhouses, where about 1,300 pigs are slaughtered and transported to markets each day, about 30 per cent of the city’s pork, would be the first to be closed down.

The municipal People’s Committee vice chairman Nguyen Huy Tuong made the statement after surprise inspections of four of Ha Noi’s largest, traditional slaughterhouses on Saturday.

Only one slaughterhouse met the country’s hygiene requirements. The remaining slaughterhouses were operating without licences and were discharging untreated waste. Their products also lacked quarantine seals and were improperly transported to urban markets.

Tuong said the inspectors had warned and fined slaughterhouses several times in the past, but the situation and standards had not improved.

Inspectors had supplied the slaughterhouses with dozens of casks to improve the hygienic transportation of the meat, but the owners refused to implement the technology into the facility’s operations. This polluted the environment and annoyed local residents for a long time.

The owners said they didn’t want to use the casks as it ruined the pork and wasted their time and effort.

Tuong said the casks had been carefully tested and were used widely in HCM City.

The inspectors would continue their inspections in the upcoming days and would submit recommendations to close slaughterhouses that did not meet the required standards.

The municipal Market Watch director Nguyen Thi Nhu Mai said the city was focusing on building industrial slaughterhouses to supply 550 tonnes of pork to the city each day.

The construction of two slaughterhouses in Thuong Tin and Gia Lam districts would begin later this month, Mai said.

Currently, around 200 traditional slaughterhouses operate in Ha Noi.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News