An ambitious target of $ 1 billion turnover has been set for catfish export in 2007. However, the first six months witnessed a very pale picture while shortage of fishing materials but redundancy in processing capacity of fishing companies remained.

Whether such a high target should be reconsidered? And even more important, what actions should be done to avoid waste in processing capacity and bring benefits to farmers who are suffering from scattered aquaculture?

Remarkable increase

Tra and basa, which mainly served as food for poor farmers in Mekong delta region previously, has recently become mass produced for trading. Particularly, this product has seen remarkable increase in terms of export turnover.

Export of fillet tra and basa fish started in 1998 with almost sole destination of America market, accounting for 80% of the export volume. However, the exports markets is more and more diversified. Over the last 10 years, farming areas of tra and basa fish has increased 7 fold from 1200 hecra to 9,000 hecra, an increase of 36,6 times from 22,500 tonnes to 825, 000 tonnes. In addition, processed tra and basa  for exports has increased 40 fold from 7,000 tonnes to 286,000 tonnes, gaining turnover from $20 million to $ 736,872 million.

According to Vice Minister of Fisheries Ministry, Mr Luong Le Phuong, tra and basa fish of Vietnam has been exported to more than 90 countries and sovereingties worldwide. Export markets structure also changed significantly to be more geographically –balanced. In 2006, EU accounted for 46.6% of  Vietnamese tra and basa exports, while Russia held a share of 11,3%. Following were US, ASEAN, China, Hongkong, Australia who accounted for 9,9%, 8,5%, 5,1%, 4,2% respectively.

However, Mr Phuong stated, “These figure not yet reflected full potential of Vietnam’s tra  and basa fish farming. Our goal is to produce more and more clean and high quality seafood for domestic and foreign consumers, to establish Vietnam fish trademark in international market and consolidate foreign consumers’ faith in Vietnam seafood”.

Strict punishment on enterprises that violated safety and hygiene regulations

According to Mr Nguyen Huu Dung, Secretary of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP), many Vietnamese seafood processing enterprises have abused illegal weight gain substances, violated labeling requirements hence made a very bad effect on prestige and benefits of their own. Particularly, the scattered farming of tra and basa fish has created fierce internal competition among domestic producers while declined national competitiveness on international market. Currently, most of processing factory only use up to 50% of the designed capacity”.

Mr Duong Ng?c Minh, Director of Hung Vuong seafood processing joint stock company shared his concern over the materials for tra and basa fish. According to Mr Minh, if there is no overall planning of tra and basa farming, the output will fluctuate, leading to the instability of market price. Currently, tra and basa fish are being sold at 13,000 VND per kilo in Mekong Delta.

According to Mr Ngô Phu?c H?u, Head of Management Board and General Director of An Giang seafood export-import joint stock company, Vietnam tra and basa fish output ranked third in the world with an estimated output of 1 million tonnes for 2007. However, catfish farming condition is now beyond our control. There is no official regulation on farming density, cleaning of water and processing waste from catfish farming. Hence, a solid legal frame is to be established in order to ensure the sustainability of tra and basa fish farming.

Vietnam aquaculture generally and tra and basa fish farming in particular is mostly simultaneously developed. In order to avoid the constraints over fish materials, newly establish processing firms should be responsible for developing their own materials raising source with high quality and towards international standards.

In addition, more investment should be poured in developing high quality, disease-free breeding fish source. Water and other pollution factor should be strictly controlled by a warning system. Farming standards are to be public in parallel with strict punishment on processing enterprises who violated safety and hygiene requirements.

Another urgent action is to finalize, disseminate and support seafood enterprises to apply VietGAP standard in their farming. These standards are designed to establish strict control so as to produce clean and high quality seafood. VASEP members should be updated with latest farming techniques such as 5-step farming, namely: breeding fish raising site, food factory, fish raising sites, fish drug supplier and seafood processing factory for exports. Recently, Vietnam seafood prestige has been seriously affected by enormous claims over abusement of antibiotics in exports products. Therefore, there is a must to develop seafood insurance services with active involvement from commercial banks and insurance firms.