VietNam Business: seafood products

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Tra fish among US’s top ten popular seafood products

Tra fish has become one of the US’s top ten popular seafood products in
2009 for the first time, according to the Vietnamese Association of
Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP).

n its annual list of the 10 most popular seafood’s, released by the US’s
National Fisheries Institute on September 9, tra fish ranked 10 th .

Luong Le Phuong, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture
and Rural Development said that as tra fish is one of Vietnam’s major
exports, the ministry has introduced measures to strictly control its
quality throughout the stages from farming to processing and marketing.

According to VASEP, in the first seven months of
this year, Vietnamese seafood exports to the US reached 435 million USD,
of which tra fish accounted for 80.8 million USD, up 14 percent from
the same period last year, with the volume reaching over 26,000 tonnes.

However, the US’s Department of Commerce has made a
decision on anti-dumping tax based on the administrative review of tra
fish imports from Vietnam between August 2008 and July 2009, resulting
in Vietnamese seafood exporters facing higher tariffs.

Nguyen Huu Dung, the Deputy Chairman of VASEP said that the
unreasonable tariffs have made many Vietnamese businesses suffer heavy
losses and tra fish exports to the US will find it harder in the near
future./.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Vietnamese catfish makes list of US top 10 seafood

Vietnam’s tra and basa catfish have found a place among the 10 favorite seafood products in the US for the first time

Photo: Tuoi Tre

Vietnam’s tra and basa catfish have found a place among the 10 favorite seafood products in the US for the first time, according to the US National Fisheries Institute.

NFI’s president, John Connelly, also told officials from the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development at a recent meeting that the top 10 seafood products account for 88 percent of total consumption in the US.

Vietnam earned US$435 million from exporting seafood to the US in the first seven months this year. Catfish accounted for $80.8 million, a year-on-year increase of 14.2 percent, from shipments of 26,000 tons, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors said.

For several years now, Vietnamese catfish exporters have had a hard time selling their products to the US.

Just last May Catfish Farmers of America claimed that Vietnam’s tra and basa are “dirty,” of low quality, and seriously violated food quality standards in the first quarter.

Its website carried a four-minute video about catfish production in the Mekong River titled “Dirty Waters, Dangerous Fish” which purports to show polluted waters and badly maintained fish-processing plants.

Vietnam rejected the charges, saying the fish are raised in floating farms that meet international standards like SQF 1000 and GAP.

The US Department of Agriculture recently revealed its intention to list Vietnamese tra and basa as “catfish” to bringing them into the list of products covered by the Farm Bill.

It highlights the fickle nature of US demands for, in 2002, the department did the exact opposite – it said Vietnam cannot export tra and basa to the US as “catfish” since it feared the domestic catfish industry will be hit.

As a result, Vietnamese catfish has since been labeled “pangasius.”

The Farm Bill promises to pose more hurdles for Vietnamese catfish exports.

VietNam Business