The Vietnam Catfish Association has called on local seafood processors and traders to brace for China’s more stringent quality standards for tra fish imports from Vietnam as shipments to the neighboring market are rising.

Workers are seen at a tra fish processing plant in the Mekong Delta 

At a seminar on seafood held in Can Tho City on April 18 by the association, Vo Hung Dung, vice president and general secretary of the association, warned that the standards for tra fish would surely be tightened due to Vietnam’s increasing exports to China.

“China accounts for a big proportion of Vietnamese tra fish exports, so the quality of tra fish shipments to the market will be raised towards stringent standards of BAP, Global GAP and ASC,” Dung told the meeting.

Dung also advised seafood processors to keep prices at reasonable levels to maintain their competitiveness in the Chinese market, and any efforts to push up prices will backlash if other competitors step in, he said.

“Don’t think that China and other countries cannot farm tra fish. The only issue here is that such countries cannot develop tra fish farming on an industrial scale at low cost, and they do not have a full-fledged value chain to make the most of all byproducts from the fish,” Dung said.

He stressed that if local processors can keep prices low, their market share can be maintained and expanded.

Tran Thanh Phong, deputy general secretary of the association, said China is opening its market wider for Vietnamese tra fish, but its regulations on food safety will hinder tra fish traders in the coming time. He noted that China has surpassed the U.S. to become the biggest buyer of Vietnamese tra fish.

Speaking at the seminar, Phong said tra fish shipments to China have increased sharply over the years, from 6.4% of Vietnam’s total export of this product in 2014 to 10.3% in 2015 and 17.8% in 2016. Tra fish exports to the northern neighbor further accelerated to 23% last year, leading China to overtake the U.S. and the European Union as the biggest buyer of Vietnam’s tra fish now.

Vo Hung Dung, meanwhile, predicted that China’s imports of Vietnam’s tra fish this year may rise to 30% of the total.

Predicting enormous potential, many Vietnamese seafood firms have sought to open offices in China to boost trade.

Of the volume of tra fish bound for China, formal trade represented 56%, whereas border trade made up 44% of the total.

SGT