Vietnam opposes US regulations for tra, basa fish exports

Vietnamese tra and basa fish producers and exporters from the Mekong city of Can Tho have rejected USDA's plan to name the products as catfish, which brings them into the product list under the supervision of the Farm Bill.

 

Nguyen Viet Thang, chairman of the Vietnam Fisheries Association, said that the USDA's decision highlights inconsistency on its part because it did not permit the export of Vietnamese tra and basa fish to the US under the name of catfish in fear of negatively influencing its own sheatfish breeding industry.

 

Currently in the US anti-dumping law, Vietnam's tra and basa fish are called Pangasius, under their scientific classification.

 

According to the Farm Bill, Vietnamese tra and basa fish eligible for export to the US market must be raised in line with the standards applied to catfish bred in the north-eastern region of the US.

 

This poses huge difficulties for Vietnamese exporters as the country's fish and tra fish feed in the Mekong River, while US farmers raise Ictalurus catfish in shallow ponds with water pumped up from drilled wells.

 

In addition, fish food and breeding habits in Vietnam are different from those in the US, resulting in a different quality of fish.

 

If the US decides to list Vietnamese tra and basa fish as products to be monitored by the Farm Bill, domestic fish breeders will incur higher production costs and lose competitiveness, said Ngo Phuoc Hau, chairman of the An Giang Fisheries Export-Import Company.

 

Vietnamese tra and basa fish have been exported to 130 countries worldwide. Last year, Vietnam earned US$1.34 billion from the export of these products.