viet nams restrictions on fruit due to fruit flies in october 2015 chile expressed concerns about viet nams restrictions on its horticultural products due to fruit fly. in august 2015 viet nam had informed chile of its suspension of fruit imports as chile was not recognized as free of fruit flies and would not regain its status until viet nam was able to carry out a pra. chile explained that since 1980 it had operated a fruit fly programme administered by the national plant protection organization nppo through which chile maintained the national fruit fly detection system sndmf . sndmf ensured that chile was free from the mediterranean fruit fly and from other exotic fruit flies of economic significance based on the ippc guidelines. chile had eradicated fruit flies from each of the outbreak areas for three biological life cycles of the insects. currently there were two mediterranean fruit fly outbreaks in chile for which a timely corrective action plan had been initiated to achieve eradication. chile indicated that since it had taken action to eradicate the pest there had been no exports of fruit from the pest-infected areas and all fruit exports were inspected prior to shipping. as such chile considered viet nams measure to be disproportionate and without scientific basis and urged viet nam to comply with the sps agreement in particular with articles 2.2 2.3 3 5.4 5.5 5.6 and 6. finally chile thanked viet nam for the bilateral discussions held and expressed its willingness to continue to address the issue in a positive manner. viet nam replied that the temporary suspension of issuing import permits due to mediterranean fruit flies was aimed at protecting viet nams plant health from risks arising from pests. chile had experienced outbreaks of mediterranean fruit flies from march to may 2015. in october 2014 viet nams ministry of agriculture and rural development had published the list of pests where fruit flies had been assigned to quarantine pest grou 1. this grou listed high risk pests that had never been previously introduced into viet nam. the circular had been notified to the wto g sps n vnm 63 and g sps n vnm 63 add.1 and viet nam further noted that the temporary suspension was aligned with ispm 11. although viet nam had sent official letters to chile requesting more information on the outbreaks in order to carry out a pra and other regulatory quarantine procedures viet nam had not yet received adequate information to start the process. viet nam requested that chile work closely with the competent authorities in viet nam to resume the discussions. in november 2017 the secretariat informed that in september 2017 it had contacted all members who had raised specific trade concerns stcs that had not been discussed in the previous year to request an update on their status. in furtherance of this request information was received from chile on the resolution of this stc. the secretariat indicated that the information received had been circulated in document rd sps 28 of 31 october 2017 and that the sps ims would be updated on this basis using the date of the present sps committee meeting as the date of resolution of the relevant stcs.