Vietnam’s Tra and Basa fish facing too many barriers

Tra and basa farmers and exporters have been warned about various requirements they will need to satisfy in order to export to different markets.

VietNamNet Bridge – Tra and basa farmers and exporters have been warned about various requirements they will need to satisfy in order to export to different markets.

Vietnam’s tra and basa fish have to meet many different standards set by each importing countries, and every standard is only valid for certain markets.

GlobalGap, SQF, or ASC?

Truong Dinh Hoe, Secretary General of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that to be able to export seafood to the US, enterprises must have HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point). This is the requirement the US sets on any food products to be imported by the country.

HACCP is a systematic preventive approach to food safety and pharmaceutical safety that addresses physical, chemical, and biological hazards as a means of prevention rather than finished product inspection. HACCP is used in the food industry to identify potential food safety hazards, so that key actions can be taken to reduce or eliminate the risk.

However, the problem is that with HACCP Vietnam’s seafood products can enter the US market but this does not mean they can be exported to the EU countries. Therefore, in order to be able to export products to different markets, Vietnamese enterprises will have to spend much money to obtain different certificates.

Do Xuan Mai from the An Giang Fisheries Association (AFA), has warned that if the US approves the Farm Bill 2008, adding Vietnam’s tra and basa into the list of “catfish”, Vietnam’s tra and basa fish will not only have to satisfy HACCP, but also have to meet many other requirements.

Meanwhile, in order to be able to export products to EU countries, Vietnamese enterprises, first of all, have to follow the requirements on the codes of the union. Besides, in order to penetrate the retail chains in the countries, the export products must satisfy GlobalGap (Good Agricultural Practice),which is an unwritten law.

According to VASEP, previously, EU countries applied EurepGAP which nowadays has been changed into GlobalGap.

After first putting Vietnam’s tra and basa fish in the “Red list” and then removing it, the World Wild Fund has reached a consensus with Vietnam on the application of its safety standards for tra and basa industry. Under the agreement, by 2015, about 50 percent of Vietnam’s tra exports will have to meet ASC standards.

Too many standards make Vietnamese food processors confused

Thoi bao Kinh te Saigon quoted Vo Van Thanh, a farmer who has five hectares of tra and basa fish ponds in Dong Thap province as saying that he became confused because there were too many standards. He still does not know which standards to apply, GlobalGap or SQF 1000. And now he has heard that ASC is also very important.

“I cannot apply all these standards, because it will cost me too much money to obtain certificates, and this in turn will push the production cost up,” Thanh complained.

Currently, the production cost is about 20,000 dong per kilo, of which 70-80 percent is spent on fish food and 10 percent on medicine, while the application of standards will cost 10 percent of total expenses.

Truong Dinh Hoe from VASEP also said that after WWF said it wanted Vietnamese consumers to apply the organisation’s ASC standards for tra and basa fish, Vietnamese farmers became even more confused, because all standards have been advertised as the best – Vietnamnet

Tags: Vietnam Tra fish exports