This protective barrier of the U.S. Congress is causing business losses for not only Vietnamese seafood exporters but also those from other ASEAN countries. The analysis was said in the margin of the U.S - Vietnam conference on agriculture cooperation in Washington DC.
At the conference, experts from Vietnam introduced American enterprises opportunities to cooperate and invest into the fields of agriculture, forestry and fishery in Vietnam, especially potentials in aquaculture.
Most American representatives evaluated that with a great contribution of over 20 percent to GDP and increasing export value, which is expected to reach US$30 billion by 2015, the agricultural sector of Vietnam show high potentials for foreign investors.
However, one of the biggest obstacles in commercial exchanges between Vietnam and the U.S. are now trade barriers including unfair antidumping and countervailing taxes.
Currently, the most concern of Vietnamese agricultural and seafood exporters to the American market is the catfish inspection program developed and implemented by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Exports of Vietnamese pangasius to the U.S. may be stopped for a long period to prepare to meet U.S. new requirements.
Furthermore, the catfish inspection program will also impact on other seafood supplying countries to the U.S.
Robert DeHann, Vice president of National Fishery Institution (NFI), said that the USDA catfish program is a manner to protect benefits of a small part in U.S. fishery industry.
"We really worry that this program, if implemented in the coming years, will cause an immediate ban of some seafood products imported from many countries, especially Vietnam. We asked the U.S. government to repeal this duplicative program and I knew that Vietnam sent the same request to the U.S competent authorities. And other ASEAN countries having seafood trade with the U.S. must join hand to call for this repeal. If not, their products of other species and varieties will also be regulated by this program sooner or later", he highlighted.
Under the newly adopted Farm Bill 2014, USDA will set up a Catfish Office to monitor the inspection of catfish and require imported products to meet standard for farming and processing activities, which is currently imposed to American companies to ensure food safety.
According to the General Secretary of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the catfish program will block imports of pangasius and catfish from ASEAN countries into the U.S. "So far no country in ASEAN can meet standard set by the USDA. This is an unfair requirement to protect domestic producers", he added.
U.S. trade barriers are obstacles in economic relations between Vietnam and the U.S. Vietnam will continue to call for the repeal of the USDA catfish program. It is also preparing for trade disputes under the WTO.
So far, there is no report on risks and impacts of imported pangasius on consumers' health in the U.S. The switch of inspection responsibility from Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to USDA, which leads to implementation of unfeasible standards to imported products, is clearly a protectionist manner.
Though being approved in early 2014, the new Farm Bill has to wait for a long time to be implemented. Standards developed by the USDA have not been finally issued until December instead of April as fixed by the U.S. Congress.
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(seafood.vasep.com.vn) On November 12 in Ho Chi Minh City, the Embassy of the Netherlands, in coordination with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, organized the Vietnam–Netherlands Business Forum under the theme “Shaping the future of sustainable aquaculture in the Mekong Delta.”
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