Vietnamese companies are finding hard to ship tra and basa catfish to Russia because thousands tons of products have been unable to enter the markets due to changes in management policies, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) said.
They cannot ship the consignments Russia rejected to other markets because Russia's requirements on imports are different from other countries, said deputy director of the MARD’s Planning Department, Tran Thi Mieng.
“It is not the quality of Vietnamese seafood, but complicated procedures required by Russian authorities, that block Vietnamese seafood exports,” Mieng said.
The Russian market applied additional complicated procedures for importing seafood earlier this year. Russian importers are required to have many licenses to be eligible to import seafood products.
Even though number of Vietnamese companies eligible to export seafood to Russia has increased to 27, the country's export decreased more than 8.1 per cent to nearly US$93 million.
Presently, Russia is accounting for only 3 per cent of Vietnam's total seafood export revenues.
Early this year, Russia announced a ban on the import of seafood from several countries, including Vietnam. Russia then granted permission for 27 Vietnamese seafood companies to export to Russia after fact-finding inspections in Vietnam.
According to results released in September by the Russian Federation’s Veterinary and Physio-Sanitary Surveillance Service, the safety and hygiene standards of Vietnamese seafood processing plants gave no cause for concern. The Russian inspection team was pleased with the farming, processing, technical and water treatment of fish-growing ponds at facilities checked out in the southern province of Ben Tre.
Vietnam recently requested Russia license another 18 seafood processing companies. The ministry will work closely with Russian authorities to ease Vietnamese seafood exports to the market, Mieng said.
“The MARD has also planned to strengthen exports to other markets including Commonwealth of Independent States and Poland to compensate for the reduction in Russian market,” said Mieng.
Considering the dismal Russian market, Vietnamese seafood exports are optimistic about the Australian outlet as both export volume and value to the market have sharply surged. They have so far this year earned US$30 million from the market, up 30 per cent on year.
Vietnam is expected to fetch US$3.7 billion this year from seafood exports, up 10.5 per cent over last year. (Trade)
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