VN imports 5,100 tons of Chinese gingers TUOITRENEWS    A customer chooses Chinese gingers at Binh Tay market in District 6, Ho Chi Minh City May 7, 2013. (Tuoitre) More than 5,100 tons of ginger from China has passed customs clearance to enter Vietnam from early 2012 to the end of February 2013, according to customs department. Chinese ginger imports to the south have been increasingly rising, and most entered Ho Chi Minh City via the District 2-based Cat Lai port, the department said. The products were imported by 25 companies, freight forwarders, food processors, and agricultural product sellers. The importers either distributed the gingers to wholesale markets, where they would be sold to small markets countrywide, or used them for food processing, according to the department. The customs department noted that the importers also include a company that operates as a “clean Da Lat produce supplier.” Chinese gingers enjoy a zero import tax, and imports so far this year are estimated at 330 tons, according to the department. Vietnamese consumers are now worried over the information released by a Chinese TV channel that gingers in China’s Weifang city are grown with aldicarb, a highly toxic pesticide that can cause dizziness, blurred vision, nausea and respiratory failure. Chinese gingers are widely available in markets across the country, but there has yet to be any official confirmation that these include the toxically grown products. Competent agencies meanwhile have begun to take action to clarify the case. For instance, the Plant Protection Department, under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, has asked its subunits in charge of watching over the northern border gates to review the ginger import activities from China, according to Thanh Nien newspaper. “The department has collected samples of the imported Chinese gingers to test for aldicarb residues,” the newspaper quoted department chief Nguyen Xuan Hong as saying. The test results will soon be announced to local consumers, Hong said.