Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Luong Le Phuong says the five companies will work together to raise the price of tra and basa catfish paid to breeders. They agreed to propose the common price, which will be considered the ceiling price for all other catfish exporters.
 

Mr Phuong notes that products from a company sold at a lower price are of low quality. In the same market he says, if they sell their products at lower prices they must cheat in their trading.

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has directed the Quality Management Department to strengthen inspections and create stricter regulations for quality control. Currently, two investigation groups are working in the Mekong Delta region. MARD will tighten control over businesses that dump prices and will test all the batches of their products before they are exported. Mr Phuong describes this is an effective measure to prevent unhealthy competition and price reduction which causes difficulties for the catfish market.

Over the past 7 months, the country has earned US$762.7 million from tra and basa catfish exports. Russia and Ukraine are still the two biggest consumers, with an estimated import value of US$123.29 million and US$76.26 million, respectively. It is estimated that by the end of this year, tra and basa catfish exports to those two markets will increase sharply thanks to reasonable prices and close coordination between the fisheries sectors of the three countries.

Mr Phuong says that a MARD delegation will visit Russia in October to seek export opportunities for this year’s Christmas and New Year season. He believes that the visit to traditional markets such as the EU, the US and some Eastern European countries, the visit will help clear the stagnation in the tra and basa catfish market.

Due to difficulties in finding export markets and price decreases, many breeders are unable to reinvest in their breeding any more. Mr Phuong forecasts that even if businesses buy catfish at VND14,000-14,200 per kilogram, breeders still lose VND1,200-2,000 per kilogram. Therefore, businesses should concentrate on finding export markets and raise export prices to buy catfish at reasonable prices in order to support farmers. If they do not raise the price paid to them they will stop breeding fish and by early 2009, there will be serious shortages of tra and basa catfish.