Promoting High Value-Added Solutions in Catfish Products (24-12-2019)
The forum "Improving export value of catfish to adapt to the world market" was organized by the Vietnam Catfish Association in coordination with the Agricultural Product Processing and Market Development Department - MARD on December 11, 2019, in Cao Lanh city, Dong Thap province.
Reports at the forum showed that, the total area of catfish farming is 5,400 hectares in 2019, with a total production of 1,512 million tons. Most of the farms apply quality management programs, disease control such as VietGAP, GlobalGAP, ASC, BAP, etc. The facilities are equipped with modern machinery, equipment and technology to meet the standards of export market. Equipment and technology for producing fish oil by-products and catfish are quite modern and synchronous.
In the first 10 months of 2019, catfish export turnover was estimated at US $ 1.64 billion, go down 10% over the same period in 2018. The main reason is due to the reduction of US $ 2 per kg of catfish, exports of commodities. Catfish decreased by 10 - 20% over the same period.
At the forum, delegates assessed the situation of catfish industry in 2019 with many fluctuations in consumer markets, when sharply reduced in the US and Europe markets and tended to increase slightly in the Japanese, Chinese, ASEAN markets and etc; Catfish prices in the first months of the year were high but then continued to decline; The domestic market was initially promoted, businesses adapted flexibly. This industry faces many difficulties in this year such as: the quality of fingerlings is declining, causing a loss in the farming period, low production efficiency; Chain link in catfish production is greatly affected. Because the price of commercial catfish was high so farmers actively requested not to participate; Chinese market is unstable, risky and affected by US anti-dumping tax.
To solve this problem, many delegates suggested that ministries, functional agencies and local authorities need to have their own image-building plans and trade promotion programs for catfish products and brand development. Vietnamese catfish; promoting the "conductor" role in sustainable regional links, connecting businesses to stabilize market prices; supporting quality management and traceability; strengthen management of catfish farming waste according to standards and standards; training human resources to develop catfish products; building trademarks and protecting trademarks of catfish products; focus on improving the quality and food safety, etc.
Le Mai