Ecuador NTE INEN 184:2013 - canned tuna and bonito
NTE INEN 184:2013 is the Ecuadorian technical standard for canned tuna and bonito. Ecuador’s Resolucion No. 302 officialized the second revision of NTE INEN 184 as mandatory for canned tuna and bonito requirements. The FAOLEX/UNEP record lists the date of text as 14 December 2012 and the official publication as Registro Oficial No. 881 on 29 January 2013.
Scope
The standard applies to canned tuna and bonito products in Ecuador. It is the national comparator cited by Aguilar-Miranda et al. 2024 for total mercury in canned tuna in water sold in Quito.
Exact limit and units
| Matrix | Analyte | Maximum level | Basis |
|---|---|---|---|
| Canned tuna and bonito | Total mercury, as Hg | 1.0 mg/kg | Product as cited by NTE INEN 184:2013 and applied in Aguilar-Miranda et al. 2024 |
The Aguilar-Miranda source page uses this value as the Ecuadorian national threshold for canned-tuna total mercury. The same paper also compares results against EU 2023 and FAO/Codex comparators.
How tested
The source paper cites NTE INEN 184:2013 as the regulatory comparator but performs laboratory analysis by cold-vapor atomic fluorescence spectrometry after microwave-assisted acid digestion. This regulation page does not claim that NTE INEN 184 prescribes that method; source pages should preserve each paper’s own method.
Enforcement posture
The FAOLEX/UNEP record states that Resolucion No. 302 officialized the second revision of NTE INEN 184 with mandatory character. No repeal is listed in that record.
How this page interacts with HMT&C
This page records the national Ecuadorian maximum level cited by a source paper. It does not set an HMT&C certification threshold. HMT&C-facing work should cite this page only when preserving the regulatory comparator used by Ecuador-focused canned-tuna literature.
Sources
- UNEP LEAP / FAOLEX. Resolucion No. 302 - NTE INEN 184 sobre requisitos para atun y bonito en conserva. Source URL: https://leap.unep.org/en/countries/ec/national-legislation/resolucion-no-302-nte-inen-184-sobre-requisitos-para-atun-y
- FAOLEX attached file for Resolucion No. 302: http://faolex.fao.org/docs/pdf/ecu123640.pdf
- aguilar-miranda2024-thg-canned-tuna-ecuador - source-page encounter that required the Ecuador NTE INEN 184 routing target and cites the 1.0 mg/kg total-mercury comparator.
Verification notes
- Created 2026-05-18 by Codex during P0163 seafood manual-fetch ingest. The FAOLEX/UNEP public record verifies the standard’s legal identity, mandatory officialization, text date, official-register publication, and non-repealed status. The exact 1.0 mg/kg Hg value is taken from Aguilar-Miranda et al. 2024’s direct citation to NTE INEN 184:2013 and the paper’s Table 1 note.
Page history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page. The full version history lives in git; when DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.