Tra Catfish to Be out of Troubled Waters

The year 2009 elapsed with numerous concerns for those in connection with tra catfish, also known as pangasius although the annual export turnover improved from the previous year.

Rough roads ahead

The rise and fall are the two clearest states of tra catfish producers and exporters after a year of struggle. Right from the beginning in 2010, General Director of Hung Vuong Seafood Joint Stock Company and Chief of Executive Board for Pangasius Export to Russia, Duong Ngoc Minh, said: “The import demand in Russia, Poland, Germany, Spain, Brazil and other markets rose 30 % in the first months of 2010 from the same period in 2009.” This information, to a certain extent, strengthened the confidence of tra catfish processors, exporters, and in a broader scope, procedures. Shortly before that, the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that the tra catfish export turnover in 2009 roughly reached US$1.3 billion but, sadly, the export revenues in the Russian market plunged nearly 63 % over a year earlier.

More concernedly, 2,854 farmers in An Giang province borrowed nearly VND1,500 billion to raise catfish on an water surface area of 1,500 ha, the largest area of a province in Mekong Delta where tra catfish is bred on over 3,600 ha water surface. Tra catfish producers in Mekong Delta were driven by unpredictable situations from importing markets, fish feed prices and purchases of traders. The biggest worry was their inability to settle all debts with banks at the end of the year. Capital shortage happened to all concerned parties from producers, processors and exporters to even importers. Apparently, the hardest hit victims of the whirl were people with limited financial sources.

State officials, specialists, enterprises and collective economists shared a viewpoint that Vietnam will create a sole trademark for the tra catfish on the world market. However, it is not easy to maintain and promote this status because we need to sell what they need, not what we have.

In the middle of 2009, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development and Chief of Steering Committee for Producing and Selling Pangasius in Mekong Delta, Mr Cao Duc Phat, said that he had visited the US and talked with US Secretary of Agriculture, parliamentary organs and government offices. After returning from the US, he required concerned parties in Vietnam to closely monitor market developments in the US market for timely treatment. “The US Congress has passed a law on tightening the examination on the quality and production process of catfish. However, whether the Vietnamese pangasius is named a catfish or not has not been decided by the US Department of Agriculture,” said Mr Phat. Only with one market where the catfish looks similar to the Vietnamese pangasius, Vietnam will have to face up with numerous difficulties, if all more than 130 countries do the same, difficulties and challenges against Vietnam will multiply.

The Vietnamese pangasius needs a thorough look, even in smallest details to understand challenges to seek out solutions to live through. Who will take charge of the task of ensuring a source of income worth of billions of US dollars for the nation?

New approaches

In that context, since late 2009, a piece of good news, which may be considered a solution, came up. Two aquatic producers and exporters announced to take root in the US market – the most potential market for any Vietnamese companies. Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company and Hung Vuong Co., Ltd announced they are building up distribution networks in the US market, opening a new prospect for Vietnamese tra catfish and Vietnamese aquatic products in the world’s largest market. For shrimp, which made a debut in the US market since the 1990s, Vietnamese companies Minh Phu Seafood Corp have already set up distribution networks for shrimps. However, the meaningfulness of the tra catfish is higher than the case of shrimp as it is created when the situation is “critical.”

Binh An Seafood Joint Stock Company (Bianfishco), which is led by Pham Thi Dieu Hien, a two-time Golden Rose Award winner, has epically entered the US market. Dieu Hien is a determined businesswoman. When Americans raised barriers to the penetration of tra and basa catfish from Vietnam by imposing antidumping tax – a kind of tax to protect domestic production, she was prodded to stay in the US market. She made careful preparations and silently approached Americans.

When [we] met her at a Mekong Delta businesswomen meeting, she actively spoke of her three-month stay in the US market to find the new way for the Vietnamese tra fillet. In the start of 2010, Bianfishco will kick off a campaign worth US$40 million to build Dieu Hien Market chain. Dieu Hien Market will become a member of the most convenient serviced complex system in San Francisco (California). Six similar complexes will be built by the US Government in New Jersey, Hawaii, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maine and Illinois.

“Not only being introduced foods made from tra catfish, American guests were also offered Vietnamese Mekong Delta specialties like rice, shrimps, crabs, oysters, vegetables, roots and fruits. And more importantly, I want to use Vietnamese cultural characteristics to win the heart of Americans,” said Dieu Hien.

To improve the position of the Vietnamese tra catfish, the Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has recently asked the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Government to apply five measures to boost exportation of tra catfish in 2010. Bianfishco’s forerunning step is the fifth solution.

The solutions include speeding up trade promotion programmes, organising marketing and advertisement activities overseas with innovative content and forms. Vietnam will, through trade fairs, trade and investment promotion opportunities, promote popularity and understanding of the value of Vietnamese tra catfish products and prevent defamation of Vietnamese tra catfish with the purpose of unfair competition from import markets.

Hopefully, these solutions and the efforts of Government and Enterprises will harvest good results in the New Year.

VCCI News

Posted by VBN on Mar 3 2010. Filed under Sea food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry