Pangasius fish price drops to ten year low

The price of pangasius fish in the Mekong Delta has drastically fallen while slow consumption has posed a threat of oversupply and up inventory, said chairman of Vietnam Pangasius Association Duong Nghia Quoc on July 5.

Workers processing Pangasius fish for export (Photo: SGGP)

The price has been falling for the last several days in An Giang, Dong Thap province and Can Tho city. Currently processing plants pay only VND19,000-20,000 a kilogram, the lowest level for the last decade. With this price, breeders suffer a loss of VND3,000-5,000 a kilogram.

According to the Vietnam Pangasius Association, the fish price maintained high in 2017 and 2018 rocketing to VND35,000-37,000 a kilogram sometimes.

In 2019, many places increased farming area causing high output while export has been difficult especially to China and the US, export to these markets has kept reducing since the beginning of the year. In addition the trade war between the US and China and technical barriers from some nations have affected the fish export.

Urgent solutions are that localities must do statistics on the farming area increase and the fish output especially the ready for harvest volume to assist consumption. Ministries, associations and businesses should speed up trade promotion, expand consumption market and seek ways to boost the fish import from two large markets including the US and China as soon as possible. In addition, they should have credit policy to support businesses to increase  purchase in order to limit damage for farmers.