Pacific Shelf — Issue 014

Decree 37/2026/ND-CP — origin must appear on the original physical label at customs clearance. In force since 23 January 2026. Pre-printed label grace period expires 23 January 2028.

Vietnam's Government issued Decree 37/2026/ND-CP on 23 January 2026, detailing implementation of the amended Law on Quality of Products and Goods. Chapter IV took effect on the date of issuance. On that date, Decree 43/2017/ND-CP and Decree 111/2021/ND-CP — the instruments that governed Vietnamese labelling for the better part of a decade — ceased to apply.

Chapter V of the decree consolidates labelling requirements and tightens origin-labelling for imported goods, including foods and agricultural products. The operative change for exporters: the original physical label affixed to the goods must display origin information for customs inspection and clearance. Electronic labelling is introduced for the first time under Vietnamese law, but is expressly not available for imported goods.

Two transitional provisions apply. Goods produced, imported, or already in circulation before 23 January 2026 may continue to circulate until the end of their shelf life. Pre-printed or pre-produced labels issued before 23 January 2026 may continue to be used in manufacturing for up to two years from that date — expiring 23 January 2028.

For Australian exporters: this is a seven-month-old requirement that most of the trade press only picked up in late August. Two questions to answer this week. First, does the label applied at your Australian facility state country of origin in a form Vietnamese customs will accept at the border, not merely on the accompanying documentation? Second, if you are running down pre-printed label stock under the transitional provision, do you have a firm date for switching to compliant artwork before January 2028? The decree also draws a hard line between the label required at customs clearance and the supplementary Vietnamese-language label your importer must apply before the goods are placed on the market. Those are two separate obligations at two separate points, and clearing customs does not mean the goods are market-ready.

Source: USDA FAS GAIN VM2026-0038, 24 August 2026. Primary: Decree 37/2026/ND-CP, 23 January 2026, Chapters IV–V.

MOPH Notification No. 471 — herbal tea positive list expanded by 99 raw materials, licorice prohibited. In force since 20 August 2026. No transition period.

On 19 August 2026, Thailand's Ministry of Public Health issued Notification of the Ministry of Public Health (No. 471) B.E. 2569 (2026) Re: Herbal Tea (No. 2), amending the herbal tea product standard. The notification adds 99 permitted raw materials to the positive list, including several mushroom species, and prohibits the use of licorice in herbal tea products on safety grounds relating to glycyrrhizin content.

The notification came into effect on 20 August 2026 — the day after issuance. There is no transition period and no sell-through allowance identified in the available reporting.

For Australian exporters: narrow but sharp. If you export herbal tea, botanical infusion, or wellness tea products into Thailand and any SKU contains licorice or licorice root extract, that product is now non-compliant and should not be shipped pending confirmation. The upside is the other direction: 99 newly permitted raw materials means formulations previously blocked by the positive list may now be viable, and the mushroom additions in particular open a category that has been difficult in Thailand. Check both directions against the annexed list.

Source: ChemLinked, 26 August 2026. Primary: MOPH Notification No. 471 B.E. 2569 (2026), Royal Gazette, 19 August 2026.

BPJPH notifies two more implementing drafts — G/TBT/N/IDN/192 on genetically modified products and G/TBT/N/IDN/193 on Halal Supervisors. Comments close 27 October 2026.

Indonesia notified two draft BPJPH regulations to the WTO TBT Committee in the final week of August. Both carry a comment deadline of 27 October 2026 — ten days after the certification deadline they implement.

G/TBT/N/IDN/192 establishes guidelines for implementing the Halal Product Assurance System (SJPH) for genetically modified products. It provides the reference framework for business actors, Halal Supervisors, Halal Auditors, and Halal Product Assurance Inspectors handling materials produced through genetic engineering.

G/TBT/N/IDN/193 establishes the duties and responsibilities of Halal Supervisors appointed by domestic or foreign business actors to comply with mandatory halal certification requirements.

Read alongside the health-supplement SJPH guideline BPJPH notified on 7 August, this is the third and fourth implementing instrument in under a month.

For Australian exporters: IDN/193 is the one to read. It formalises a role your business will need to fill — the Halal Supervisor is the named person accountable for maintaining the assurance system at the production facility, and the notification confirms the obligation reaches foreign business actors. If your BPJPH application is in train, ask your importer or your appointed LPH whether the supervisor requirement has been satisfied for your establishment and who is named.

IDN/192 matters if any input in your formulation is derived from genetically modified material — Australian canola and soy derivatives are the obvious exposure. GM-derived ingredients have been a persistent grey zone in halal assessment; this guideline is BPJPH's attempt to close it. It is a draft, and the substantive content is in the notified attachment rather than the notification summary.

The structural point for readers: BPJPH is still issuing the implementing architecture seven weeks before enforcement, and setting comment deadlines that fall after the deadline itself. Plan on the framework being unsettled through October.

Source: WTO ePing: G/TBT/N/IDN/192, G/TBT/N/IDN/193. Primary: notified draft texts, BPJPH — bpjph.halal.go.id

Clarification: 17 October is the compliance cut-off. 18 October is when enforcement begins. DAFF's Market Access Advice uses the latter.

Pacific Shelf has carried 17 October 2026 as the Indonesian halal deadline in every issue since Issue 001. The department's Market Access Advice MAA 2026-20, issued 7 August 2026, states that Indonesia's Halal Law "will enter into force for agri-food and beverage products on 18 October 2026." Readers who have seen both dates may reasonably have wondered which is wrong.

Neither is. 17 October 2026 is the compliance cut-off — the last day on which uncertified product may lawfully be placed on the Indonesian market. From 18 October, BPJPH begins active market supervision and enforcement. The two dates describe the two ends of the same line.

Pacific Shelf will continue to publish 17 October as the operative deadline, because it is the date by which exporters must be certified. Where a Micor entry or departmental advice reads 18 October, that is the enforcement date and is not a variation to your obligation.

MAA 2026-20 also supersedes MAA2024-48 and consolidates the department's guidance on transport and labelling services affected by the Halal Law. It went to Dairy Australia, the Infant Nutrition Council, the Dairy Export Industry Consultative Committee, and the AFGC. If you export dairy or infant nutrition product to Indonesia and are not on those distribution lists, request the advice directly.

Source: DAFF Market Access Advice MAA 2026-20, 7 August 2026 (dairy). Primary: Indonesia Law 33/2014 on Halal Product Assurance; Government Regulation 42/2024. Cross-reference: DFAT, Complying with Indonesian halal requirements.

MOPH Notification No. 472 — methanol permitted more widely as a processing aid.

Thailand's Ministry of Public Health issued Notification No. 472 on 19 August 2026, amending the rules for the use of methanol as a processing aid in food production. The amendment relaxes the existing restriction.

For Australian exporters: deregulatory, and relevant only if methanol appears in your extraction or processing chain — botanical extracts and certain flavour and colour preparations are the realistic cases. No action is required of exporters whose processes do not use it. Noted here for completeness because it issued the same day as Notification No. 471 and readers reviewing the Royal Gazette will encounter both.

Source: ChemLinked, 27 August 2026. Primary: MOPH Notification No. 472 B.E. 2569 (2026), 19 August 2026.

Tracker updates — Food Safety Law comment deadline extended to 11 September; new livestock and animal health decree notified.

G/SPS/N/VNM/187/Add.1. Vietnam has extended the comment deadline on the draft Food Safety Law replacing the 2010 Law, notified as G/SPS/N/VNM/187 on 3 August 2026. Comments now close 11 September 2026. Pacific Shelf covered the draft Law and its relationship to the suspended Decree 46 in the Issue 011 deep dive; nothing in the addendum changes that analysis. The extension is procedural. It does not signal a change of direction, but it does push the drafting timetable further out, which in turn extends the period during which Decree 15/2018 remains the operative framework.

G/SPS/N/VNM/191. A draft decree amending decrees in the livestock and animal health fields — veterinary medicine management, animal feed production and trading, livestock-waste-treatment products, and production eligibility certification for large-scale livestock farms. Comments close 25 October 2026. Relevant to Australian animal feed and feed-ingredient exporters; no exposure for food and beverage exporters. Note that the notification's own summary text describes the instrument as a Circular while the title describes a Decree — a drafting inconsistency in the notification itself, not in our reading of it.

Source: WTO ePing: G/SPS/N/VNM/187/Add.1; G/SPS/N/VNM/191.

JAKIM's list of recognised foreign halal certification bodies amended 24 August.

Malaysia amended its list of recognised foreign halal certification bodies in the week to 24 August 2026, adding a body in Vietnam. Malaysian market access for halal-certified product depends on your certifier appearing on this list; a certificate from an unrecognised body is not accepted at import.

For Australian exporters: no change identified to the recognition status of Australian certification bodies in this amendment. Treat this as a prompt rather than an alert — if you have not confirmed your certifier's current listing this year, do it now, ahead of the Indonesian deadline pulling certification capacity tight across the region.

Source: ChemLinked, 24 August 2026. Primary: JAKIM recognised foreign halal certification bodies list — halal.gov.my

Australian stone fruit volumes will be down across the board this season. USDA FAS forecasts a decline in Australian stone fruit production in MY 2026/27, driven by above-average winter minimum temperatures producing sub-optimal chill hours during dormancy and, in turn, poor bud development and fruit set. Cherry production is forecast down 15 per cent, peach and nectarine down 10 per cent. Export volumes fall harder than production: cherries down 18 per cent, peaches and nectarines down 15 per cent. Tasmania is the exception, with adequate chill hours and a favourable start for cherry growers.

The relevance for this readership is allocation. Australian cherries move into Vietnam, Thailand, Singapore and Malaysia through a compressed November–January window, and an 18 per cent export decline against steady regional demand means importers will be competing for volume. If you are negotiating 2026/27 supply agreements into ASEAN markets, the supply position is stronger than it has been in several seasons — and Tasmanian fruit is the part of the book that is not short.

Source: USDA FAS GAIN AS2026-0018, Stone Fruit Annual, Canberra, August 2026.

MRL alignment on the domestic side. FSANZ has proposed amending Schedule 20 of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code to align maximum residue limits for a range of agricultural and veterinary chemicals with other national regulations (G/SPS/N/AUS/641, notified 25 August 2026; comments close 30 October 2026). This is Australia's own domestic standard and creates no obligation for exporters. It is worth a line here because MRL divergence between Australian schedules and destination-market schedules remains the most common cause of ASEAN border rejection for Australian horticultural product — Thailand's consolidated MRL regulation has been catching exporters out since July 2025. Alignment work at the Australian end narrows that gap. It does not close it, and it does not change the standing advice: verify against the destination market's schedule before every shipment, not against ours.

Source: WTO ePing G/SPS/N/AUS/641. Primary: APVMA Gazette No. 17, 25 August 2026.

Vietnam changed its labelling law in January. Most exporters found out last week.

Decree 37/2026/ND-CP has been in force for seven months. Here is what it requires and what it replaced.

On 23 January 2026, the Vietnamese Government issued Decree 37/2026/ND-CP, the implementing decree for the amended Law on Quality of Products and Goods. Chapter IV, which governs goods labelling, took effect immediately on issuance rather than on a deferred commencement date. From that moment, Decree 43/2017/ND-CP and Decree 111/2021/ND-CP — the two instruments that had governed labelling of goods in Vietnam, and the two instruments most Australian exporters' compliance files are still built around — no longer applied.

USDA FAS reported it on 24 August. That is a seven-month gap between commencement and trade-press coverage, and it is the reason this is the lead item in an issue where nothing about it is new.

What the decree consolidated

Decree 37 folds two separate labelling regimes into one. Decree 43/2017 established the general labelling framework; Decree 111/2021 amended it. Both are gone. Chapter V of Decree 37 now carries the labelling requirements, sitting inside a decree whose broader purpose is to shift Vietnamese product quality management from the old Group 1 / Group 2 classification to a risk-based low / medium / high framework.

That structural shift has its own timetable — the old classification system ran in parallel until 30 June 2026 and the risk-based mechanism took over from 1 July. The labelling provisions did not wait for that. They have been operative since January.

The origin requirement

The substantive tightening is on origin. Decree 37 requires that the original physical label affixed to imported goods display origin information for the purposes of customs inspection and clearance. The emphasis matters. Under prior practice, origin information supplied in shipping and accompanying documentation was widely treated as sufficient at the border. Decree 37 puts it on the label on the product.

For an Australian exporter, this is a factory-floor question, not a paperwork question. The label applied at your production facility in Australia — before the goods are containerised — must carry origin in a form Vietnamese customs accepts. If your current practice is to leave origin to the commercial invoice and the certificate of origin, that practice predates the decree.

Electronic labels: introduced, but not for you

Decree 37 introduces the concept of an electronic label into Vietnamese law for the first time — information presented through a data carrier affixed, printed, embedded, or displayed on the product or its commercial packaging. It is a genuine modernisation and it will matter to domestic Vietnamese manufacturers.

It is expressly unavailable for imported goods. It is also unavailable for goods required to bear a physical label under specialised legislation. Australian exporters get no relief here, and should be cautious of Vietnamese-market advisory content that presents e-labelling as a general simplification. It is not one for imports.

Two obligations, two moments

The distinction that causes the most operational trouble is between customs clearance and market circulation. They are separate points in time with separate label requirements.

At customs clearance, imported goods bearing an original foreign-language label must satisfy the applicable labelling requirements — including origin. After importation, and before the goods are placed into circulation on the Vietnamese market, the importer is responsible for adding the required Vietnamese-language labelling.

The practical consequence: a shipment can clear customs and still be unsaleable. Clearance is not market readiness. If your Vietnamese importer has been treating the supplementary Vietnamese label as something to attend to when convenient, the decree makes it a condition of lawful circulation.

Responsibility for the Vietnamese label sits with the importer, not with you. That does not make it commercially irrelevant. A shipment sitting in a bonded warehouse waiting on relabelling is your working capital as much as theirs.

The transitional provisions — and the 2028 cliff

Two grandfathering rules apply.

Goods produced, imported, circulated, or used before 23 January 2026 may continue to circulate and be used until the end of their shelf life. Product already in the Vietnamese channel under old-style labels is safe.

Pre-printed or pre-produced labels issued before 23 January 2026 may continue to be used in manufacturing for up to two years from the effective date — expiring 23 January 2028. This is the one to diarise. Exporters running down existing label stock have a defined runway, and 2028 is far enough away that it will be forgotten unless it is written down now.

What to do this week

Pacific Shelf will carry the 23 January 2028 label transition in the deadlines tracker from this issue forward.

— Jasper Blackwell-Doran Melbourne, Australia

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This digest is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal, regulatory, trade, or compliance advice. Regulatory information should be verified against current primary sources before any action is taken.

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© 2026 Jasper Blackwell-Doran / Pacific Shelf