(IntraFish) US catfish imports are up 57 percent over last year for the first half of 2012, to 11 million kilos. Pangasius from Vietnam is a major factor in the import increase. Imports are up to 10.6 million kilos from 6.7 million kilos last year.
Trade data from the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) show pangasius has new producers this year. Canada exported pangasius into the United States for the first time, as did Thailand.
Yet Vietnam – the king of pangasius production – had the most significant impact. It exported 10.3 million kilos of frozen fillets to the United States this year, up from 6.3 million last year. Frozen whole fish from Vietnam are also up, at 55,837 kilos this year compared to 29,900 kilos last year.
The trend defies US catfish growers' efforts to keep foreign catfish-like products from coming into the market without intensive inspections, as the US House of Representatives mulls whether to repeal the prohibitive but yet unimplemented United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) catfish inspection program.
If the repeal fails and the program launches, it would require as many as three agencies – the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and the USDA -- to inspect catfish imports into the United States, and it would slap prohibitive requirements on pangasius importers, which would fall under the heading of catfish.