Efforts to help pangasius exporters and farmers overcome difficulties

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), since the beginning of this year, pangasius exports to most markets remained positive with an export turnover of US$425 million, up 15% over the same period last year.

Remarkably, Vietnam pangasius exports to the U.S. were up nearly 50 percent, Mexico up 15.5 percent and Brazil up 26.2 percent from that of the same period last year. Among EU block, Spain is pangasius importer from Vietnam having the highest growth.

According to experts, although fish sales to many markets showed bright outlook, pangasius production and trade are encountering a lot of challenges. The reduction in raw fish price continued to make pangasius farmers worry.

The raw fish price in many provinces in the Mekong Delta is fluctuating at VND23,000-24,000 per kilogram, VND2,000 per kilogram lower than that of two weeks ago. The number of fish in ponds are only 200,000 MT.

With low selling price of raw fish, many farmers can abandon farming ponds, leading to a shortage of raw fish for processing and exporting in the near time. Some fish farmers, who want to continue farming, are facing a lot of bottlenecks such as lack of investment capital and inaccessibility to bank loans because the banks hesitate to lend fish farmers due to high risk.

Another difficulty is shortage of fish seed for restocking due to high mortality rate of seed in many hatcheries. According to many domestic pangasius exporters, raw fish supply from fish farmers can’t meet the demand for processing and exporting. Raw fish supply from fish farmers is estimated to satisfy less than 20 percent of fish processor’s demand this year while enterprises can only meet 50 percent of raw fish for operating through their owned farms.

Besides, pangasius exporters also cope with rocketing production cost and hardly obtain low interest rate loans. In addition, debts from some seafood enterprises forced banks to begin tightening credit control, making it difficult for seafood enterprises to access to capital.

Timely solutions

In the last 9 months of 2012, seafood enterprises and farmers need to cooperate closely with each other in pangasius production and trading. The Government should support capital for fish producers to meet their credit demand for operating. Banks should consider ‘more flexible lending’ for fish farmers such as releasing unsecured loans or lending money based on signed contracts between fish farmers and enterprises instead of loans with mortgage (cultivated land and other assets).

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development will continue to call for supportive policies of credit from the government. Besides, the close linkage among 4 sides: Government, scientists, enterprises and farmers needs to be intensified in pangasius production to raise fish price and the value of pangasius in importing markets.

Apart from state policies, localities should encourage fish farmers to apply sustainable standards such as VietGAP, GlobalGAP to ensure a stable supply of raw material with high quality.

To strengthen fish exports to new markets, enterprises should obey all terms in the contracts, ensure fish quality, and obey strictly requirements or regulations from seafood importers. This is also a main content which was discussed in the conference of pangasius production in quarter I/2012 held by VASEP in Ho Chi Minh city in April 17^th 2012. The conference addressed pangasius producing and exporting situation, raw fish supply, market trend, some measures to develop sustainable pangasius industry.

In the conference, VASEP also gave fish farmers and competent agencies overall information about trend of importing markets and pangasius exports in the first three months of 2012.