All catfish shipments to US subject to examination

Catfish processing at Hung Ca Company in Dong Thap province (Source: VNA)

HCM City (VNA) – All batches of products made from Siluriformes fish supposed to be shipped to the US will have to undergo food safety tests from August 2, 2017 instead of September 1, 2017, according to the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (NAFIQAD) under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development 

Siluriformes fish include tra, basa, tre and lang fish. 

NAFIQAD advised exporters and processors to contact with their US partners to follow the country’s new requirements.

According to the announcement of the US Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), all shipments will be checked at the official in-house test facilities. The US importers will have to submit the test forms to FSIS before their shipments arrive at the country’s border gates, so that FSIS will conduct tests at the given facility.

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the US is currently the second biggest importer of Vietnamese tra fish, behind China.

In the first four months of this year, Vietnam’s total export value of tra fish to the US stood at 90.2 million USD, a year-on-year drop of 21.7 percent