VietNamNet Bridge – Chinese meat and seafood of different kinds, from frogs, shrimp to cuttlefish and eels, have been imported in large quantities to Vietnam through illegal channels.

Smuggled sturgeon from China crushes Vietnam’s farming

Hundreds of tons of fish and shrimp have been crossing the border gates every day to enter the Vietnamese market. Border management agencies said they have seized a lot of illegally imported consignments. However, a bigger amount of imports still could escape their net to penetrate the domestic market.

A Vietnamese farmer calls Chinese fishes as “strange creatures.” Chinese ca tre (sheatfish) can grow so rapidly that it can be weighted 6 kilos just after one year, as twice as the growth rate of Vietnamese fish. This makes him think that this is a kind of genetically modified organism (GMO). However, Chinese ca tre is not reproduced. This is believed to be the invasive species which may harm the local species.

The farmer also said that the shrimps and crabs Chinese export to Vietnam are the products they bought from Vietnam before. “I believe that they (Chinese merchants) did something with the shrimps and crabs. They might inject something in the creatures to make them heavier, and then re-export back to Vietnam,” he said.

“The shrimps and crabs are abnormally big and heavy,” he added.

Meanwhile, Vietnamese sturgeon fish farmers have complained that sturgeon illegal imports from China have made them suffer. Analysts have also warned that the imports may kill the premature Vietnamese sturgeon farming industry because of there are dirt cheap.

The above said farmer said the Chinese products, which have low quality, will not go through the inspection agencies, if the agencies keep a strict control over the imports. However, the agencies seem to be powerless in this case, because their staff is limited, while the Chinese imports are overly big.

Vietnamese consumers, who have heard about the low quality of Chinese products, now tend to turn their backs to the goods from China. However, the problem is that they cannot tell the difference between Vietnamese and Chinese. Meanwhile, the low price and high promised profit have prompted Vietnamese merchants to trade Chinese products.

At a seafood shop on The Giao Street in Hanoi, a 2 kilo eel was sold at VND180,000 per kilo. The salesman here said one can buy a 2 kilo eel at the Bac Qua Market, the biggest wholesale market in Hanoi, at VND150,000 only, because this is the import from China.

Showing the eel in the tank, he said it was farmed in Sa Pa area in Vietnam. Chinese eels have more fins than Vietnamese. And they are very cheap at VND50,000 per kilo in China and VND100,000 per kilo in Vietnam.

Vietnamese merchants have estimated that at least 700 tons of sturgeon penetrated the Vietnamese market last year. The imports not only have been threatening the domestic young fish farming, but also have made consumers suffer because of the low quality.

Answering the question from the press on May 2 afternoon, Head of the Civil Aviation Authority of Vietnam Lai Xuan Thanh said airlines only have the responsibility to inspect luggage to find out if there are weapons or explosive substances.

Meanwhile, the representative from the Noi Bai airport in HCM City also said management agencies only inspect imports and exports, while they don’t examine all the goods carried by air.

Dat Viet