Namibia’s oyster industry suffered a blow on Christmas Eve when the Hong Kong’s Centre for Food Safety (CFS) suspended imports of live oysters from Walvis Bay after laboratory tests detected high levels of cadmium in oyster samples.

The Chairman of the Namibian Mariculture Association, Henning du Plessis, confirmed this to The Namibian.

“They did find high levels of cadmium in the samples and have stopped imports from Namibia to Hong Kong for the time being,” he said, adding that Hong Kong (after South Africa) was a very important market for Namibian produced oysters.

The CFS issued a press release on 24 December titled ‘Raw oyster sample found to contain cadmium over legal limit again’.

A CFS spokesman said that the raw oyster sample detected with excessive cadmium this time, and the unsatisfactory sample taken from the same premises during an earlier test, were both harvested from Walvis Bay.

Upon confirmation of the source of the concerned food, the CFS has suspended import of oysters from Walvis Bay Harbour since 23 December and continued surveillance of oysters imported from Namibia at retail level.