0304.74.00: Hake (Merluccius spp., Urphycis spp.)

1. For the purposes of subheadings 03053211 and 03053219, cod fillets (Gadus morhua, Gadus ogac, Gadus macrocephalus) having a total salt content by weight of 12 % or more which are fit for human consumption without further industrial processing, are considered to be salted fish.

However, frozen cod fillets which have a total salt content by weight of less than 12 % are to be classified under subheadings 03047110 and 03047190, in so far as the actual and lasting preservation depends essentially upon freezing.

2. For the purposes of the subheadings referred to in the third paragraph, the term ‘fillets’ includes ‘loins’, i.e. the strips of meat constituting the upper or lower, right or left, side of a fish insofar as the head, guts, fins (dorsal, anal, caudal, ventral, pectoral) and bones (spinal column or main backbone, ventral or costal bones, branchial bone or stapes, etc.) have been removed.

The classification of such products as fillets is unaffected by cutting them into pieces, provided that these pieces can be identified as having been obtained from fillets.

The provisions of the first two paragraphs apply to the following fish:

1. (a) tuna, of the genus Thunnus, of subheadings 03044990 and 03048700;

2. (b) swordfish (Xiphias gladius) of subheadings 03044500 and 03048400;

3. (c) marlin, sailfish and spearfish, of the family Istiophoridae, of subheadings 03044990 and 03048990;

4. (d) oceanic sharks (Hexanchus griseus, Cetorhinus maximus, Rhincodon typus, or of the families Alopiidae, Carcharhinidae, Sphyrnidae and Lamnidae) of subheadings 03044720, 03044790, 03048815, 03048822 and 03048829.