Hanoi (VNA) - Vietnam catfish processors must prepare for theinspection programme of the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in order toboost exports into this market. “IfVietnamese producers can meet USDA’s requirement, a huge market in the USawaits them,” according to a recent article on seafoodsource.com. Allcatfish will be subject to the scrutiny of the USDA from September 1, includingpangasius. USDA inspectors will check on all stages of the production chain in Vietnam. Catfishregulation will shift from the US Food and Drug Agency (FDA) to the USDA fromthe beginning of September, according to a law passed in 2014. The rules,pushed by the US catfish industry, will come into full force on September 1after an 18-month transition period. Regulationsunder the USDA are considered more stringent, challenging Vietnam’s strugglingpangasius industry, which supplies about 90 percent of the pangasius sold inthe US. Thesales of pangasius to the US would soar if Vietnamese exporters would use theAmerican term for them - “catfish”, according to the story. In 2002, a law waspassed restricting the use of the word to American varieties. However,pangasius is now officially recognised by US authorities as being a catfishspecies, whether they produced domestically or imported, according to thestory. Onemonth ago, the National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Departmentsent a request to the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and InspectionService asking for an equivalency determination on siluriformes fish of Vietnam,according to the Vietnam Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep). FromMarch 1, 2016 when the transition period started, 62 Vietnamese processors werefound eligible for exporting siluriformers to the US. Other exporters will haveto await the equivalency determination, expected some time this summer. DuongNgoc Minh, chairman of the Hung Vuong Corporation, said at the company’s annualshareholders meeting last week that exports of pangasius fish to the US wouldface many difficulties in 2018 due to the impacts of the USDA’s increasedinspection. Headded the tra fish industry of Vietnam was facing a severe shortage of rawmaterials, which would last to February 2018 at least, due to unfavourableweather. In2016, tra fish exports totalled 1.7 billion USD with total raw materialprocessed for exports reaching 1.5 million tones. This year, raw materials forexport were estimated at 800,000 tonnes only, Minh said. Asof the end of March, China surpassed the US to become the biggest tra fishimporter from Vietnam.-VNA