U.S. to make decision on fish imports from Vietnam in March

File photo of fish harvest in the Mekong Delta. A U.S. decision may be made in late March on whether America will continue importing tra fish (pangasius) from Vietnam or not - PHOTO: TL

CAN THO – A U.S. decision may be made in late March on whether the world’s biggest economy will continue importing tra fish (pangasius) from Vietnam or not, said Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

Hoe told the Daily that having submitted a questionnaire called the self-reporting tool (SRT) and other documentation in the second step, the equivalence determination process for Vietnamese tra fish is in the third step, which means Vietnam and the U.S. are working together to provide extra information for SRT.

The process is carried out under the mandatory inspection program of the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) for fish of the order Siluriformes, including tra fish, which came into effect in early March 2016, with a transitional period until late August 2017.

Therefore, the U.S. earlier asked countries whose catfish products, including tra fish, are shipped to the U.S., to complete the second step of the process before the end of last August, and Vietnam fulfilled the requirement on time.

An equivalence assessment of tra fish to the FSIS includes SRT, and more than 1,500 pages of documents proving that Vietnam’s food safety inspection system for tra fish is equivalent to that of the U.S., according to the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The equivalence process has six steps: exporting country submits a written request to FSIS, exporting country completes SRT and accompanying documents, FSIS reviews the documents and asks for additional information, FSIS carries out actual inspections in exporting country, FSIS initiates rulemaking for comment, and FSIS recognizes equivalence by a final rule.

Taking the progress into account, Hoe forecast the result is more likely to be announced in late March. “We still have three months left.”

A VASEP report shows that sales of tra fish to the U.S. between January and November 2017 declined by 9.7% against the year-ago period to around US$319.7 million. Notably, export revenue last August and September slumped by 54.6% and 41.2% year-on-year respectively.

VASEP ascribed the sharp decline to the catfish inspection program of the U.S. In particular, FSIS has inspected all catfish shipments entering the U.S. at inventories, also known as I-houses, managed by the United States Department of Agriculture since last August.

According to VASEP, the inspection of shipments has made life more difficult for tra fish exporters to the American market due to extra costs.