U.S. inspection threatens Vietnam catfish exports

U.S. Food Safety and Inspection Service, under Department of Agriculture (USDA), will take samples from all Viet Nam’s catfish consignments for inspection from 2 August, according to the Farm Bill.

U.S. started its inspection program on catfish from Mar 2016 and offered transitional 18 months. During the period, only 3 to 5 over 100 consignments, selected randomly, were under scrutiny. Now that the inspection program is fully enforced, the number will be raised to 100.

A delegation from Viet Nam has recently visited a number of U.S. facilities where imported pangasius would be stored and scrutinized. They expressed concerns over USDA’s decision.

A representative spoke after the visit that with the current limited capacity of the selected warehouses, many catfish shipments would likely be detained there if 100% of them were subject to inspection. This will place more burden of additional charges, like inspection and detention fees, on catfish exporters.

Viet Nam’s pangasius imported to the U.S. market already suffers a high anti-dumping duty, and now USDA’s inspection program will act as another trade barrier and cause more pressure to the sector.

Vu Van Tam, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, revealed that Viet Nam may sue the U.S. to WTO if the enforcement of the Farm Bill adversely affects Viet Nam’s seafood exports.

According to Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), pangasius is a key seafood product of Viet Nam’s exports. Its export value totaled US$148 million in the first seven months of 2017, accounting for more than 20% of Viet Nam’s total seafood exports.

U.S. is one of the main importing martkets of Vietnam pangasius. In 2016, pangasius was exported to 138 markets around the world. Among them, U.S. was the top market with 23% of the total exports value of Vietnam pangasius.