Vietnamese tra fish accounts for nearly 90% of catfishs imported to the US

Demand has recovered while domestic production has fallen sharply, causing the US to increase imports of catfish, especially tra fish from Vietnam.

Vietnamese tra fish accounts for nearly 90% of catfish imported to the US. Photo: TL.

According to VASEP, in the first 3 months of this year, the US total import volume of frozen tra fish increased by 8%; total import value increased by 10% over the same period last year.

The US imports tra fish from two main sources, Vietnam and China. While the import volume of frozen tra fish from China decreased sharply by 41% over the same period in 2020, the amount of frozen tra fish imported from Vietnam increased by 12%.

Vietnam is currently the main supplier, accounting for nearly 89.5% of the total catfish imports from the US.

In 2020, the US market was heavily affected by Covid-19, importing businesses faced many difficulties because of interruptions and large inventories.

However, since the beginning of 2021, the US inventories have been exhausted from the end of February 2021. Furthermore, the local catfish farming activities decreased sharply in production volume. This forced US importers to increase the amount of tra fish imported from Vietnam to make up for this shortage.