IUU statement.

§ 1Our commitment

Baixian Trade sources, processes, and trades seafood across several of the world's major fishing grounds. We regard the legality and traceability of that seafood as fundamental — to the integrity of the fish stocks we depend on, to the markets we serve, and to the confidence our counterparties place in us.

We work to ensure that the seafood we handle is lawfully caught, properly documented, and traceable through the steps of our supply chain. This statement describes how we approach that objective. It is written for the counterparties, regulators, and other readers who want to understand our stance and our operating practice.

§ 2What IUU fishing means

"IUU" — illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing — is the term used by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations for fishing that breaks applicable laws, escapes proper reporting, or takes place outside the reach of management and conservation rules. The FAO's International Plan of Action to prevent, deter, and eliminate IUU fishing (IPOA-IUU) sets out the internationally recognised description of these practices.

IUU fishing undermines the science-based management of fish stocks, disadvantages operators who fish legally, and is increasingly the focus of market-access controls in the jurisdictions that import seafood. For a trading business that depends on healthy stocks and open markets, working against it is a matter of straightforward commercial as well as ethical sense.

§ 3Catch documentation and market access

The seafood trade is governed, at the point of import, by a growing set of catch-documentation and market-access regimes. Product that Baixian Trade exports moves within these regimes and is accompanied by the documentation each destination requires. Depending on the market, this includes:

• European Union — catch certificates under the EU IUU Regulation (Council Regulation (EC) No 1005/2008), processed through the Union's CATCH information system.
• United States — import records under the Seafood Import Monitoring Program (SIMP), together with the facility and entry requirements administered by the US Food and Drug Administration.
• Mainland China — import registration and documentation administered by the General Administration of Customs of China (GACC).
• Japan, Korea, and other markets — the catch-documentation, health-certification, and customs requirements administered by the competent authorities, including Japan's Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Korea's Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS), and the Russian authority Rosselkhoznadzor, among others.

These regimes are administered by the authorities named, not by Baixian Trade; we describe them here to set out the documentation framework within which our product moves. The specific approvals and certifications held by our processing operations are set out on our processing capabilities page.

§ 4Traceability through our supply chain

We work so that product can be traced through the steps it passes through on the way to the customer — from the catch and its supporting documentation, through processing, to the documents that accompany the finished consignment, such as certificates of origin, health certificates, and bills of lading.

Where product is sourced through third parties or moves through more than one processing stage, we work to maintain the chain of documentation that connects the finished goods to their origin. The operational detail of how our processing facilities handle traceability is described on our processing capabilities page.

§ 5Sourcing principles

Our approach to sourcing is risk-aware. In deciding where and from whom we source, we take into account the documentation available for a catch, the regulatory standing of the vessels and operators involved, and the management regime of the fishery concerned — including the vessel-authorisation and IUU-vessel listings maintained by the relevant regional fisheries management organisations.

We expect the vessels and suppliers we work with to operate lawfully, to hold the authorisations their activity requires, and to provide the documentation that allows their catch to enter the markets we serve. Where we cannot satisfy ourselves on these points, we would not proceed.

§ 6Standards we reference

In developing our practice, we look to recognised reference points in the seafood sector:

• The FAO Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries — the framework instrument for responsible fishing and trade.
• PAS 1550 — the code of practice for exercising due diligence in establishing the legal origin of seafood products, which sets out a structured approach to legal-origin checks for importers and processors.
• The Global Dialogue on Seafood Traceability (GDST) — the standard for interoperable seafood traceability, which we are evaluating as digital traceability practice in the sector matures.

We aim to describe our position honestly rather than to overstate it. Our principal species are wild-caught, and we do not at present hold ecolabel certifications such as MSC or ASC across our range; where a certification or scheme applies to a particular product or origin, that is identified in the documentation for the consignment concerned. As traceability standards and certification schemes in the sector develop, we expect our own practice to develop with them.

§ 7Oversight and questions

Responsibility for our approach to legal sourcing and traceability sits within Baixian Trade's trade and operations functions. We keep this statement, and the practice behind it, under review as regulations, standards, and our own operations evolve.

Counterparties and others with a question about this statement, or who wish to discuss the documentation available for a particular product or origin, can reach us through our contact page.