Catfish exporters trash nation’s image abroad Catfish exporters continue to display a disdainful attitude towards foreign customs procedures that is ruining the Made-in-Vietnam label in foreign markets, said Nguyen Viet Thang, president of the Vietnam Fisheries Association (VFA). In the latest development, US Cato Holdings Inc., just recalled 12 metric tons of Sea Queen brand Swai fillets from Vietnam because they had not been inspected for antibiotic and other chemical residue. The large recall is clearly a blow to the Vietnam catfish industry who would like to see the USDA – continuous inspection – program discontinued, a move the US congress has taken under consideration. If discontinued the recently implemented catfish inspections, which effectively serve as a non-tariff trade barrier to trade, would be dismantled and responsibility for inspections returned to the US Food and Drug Administration, as has been the long-established protocol. News that the catfish is being recalled because the Vietnamese company dodged inspections for banned antibiotics has the US House of Representatives, Senate and American citizens in an uproar. The Vietnamese company in question has broken US food safety laws multiple times, and this is a practice that can’t continue, said US Representative Rosa DeLauro from Connecticut. She added that the US cannot allow Vietnamese to ship catfish to US supermarkets and put American health at risk. But it gets worse, because the US representative went on to say this fact is outrageous and a practice that must be stopped— and we can discourage the practice directly by not approving the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). The US does not need toxic catfish in its food supply, said the US congresswoman, any more than it needs the TPP. When foreign food companies a half a world away are trying to skirt our rules, we need a robust food safety system — which includes keeping USDA in charge of catfish inspections — as well as trade agreements that protect American consumers. The USDA warned consumers who have purchased the recalled Vietnamese Swai from Sea Queen to not consume it, and to return the product or throw it in the trash. The US Senate narrowly voted to end the USDA catfish inspection program last month, sending the measure to the House of Representatives, which will now decide whether to end or continue the inspection program. Statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development show that catfish exports spiralled downwards 7% year-on-year to 358,508 metric tons in the five months leading up to June of 2016. Meanwhile the total value of exports for the January-May period jumped 4% year-on-year to US$435 million, with the US market accounting for a 22% market share. However, last year exports were off by 11.5% in value from 2014, said Mr Thang, so for the two-year period exports are still overall down 4.5% in value and an even more staggering figure in volume. This is truly a discouraging number that does not bode well for sustainability of the industry, said Mr Thang. It’s time to take decisive actions to thwart actions by Vietnamese exporters that trash the reputation of the Made-in-Vietnam label in foreign markets, said Mr Thang, adding that the VFA has asked MARD to widely publicise names of companies that do so. VOV