CAN THO – The National Agro-Forestry-Fisheries Quality Assurance Department (Nafiqad) has proposed the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), under the United States Department of Agriculture, certify six more Vietnamese firms as eligible to export tra fish to the U.S. market.
Le Ba Anh, deputy head of Nafiqad, said that the department had sent registration dossiers to the U.S. agency.
“Vietnam has seen 13 enterprises certified by FSIS as eligible to ship tra fish to the choosy market,” he said.
Besides, Nafiqad is planning to ask FSIS to allow local exporters to ship processed and value-added tra fish products to the U.S. market as Vietnam is exporting just semi-processed tra fish stateside.
“If approved, the country’s tra fish industry will grow further in the coming time,” he added.
Due to the impact of the Covid pandemic, FSIS conducted a remote inspection into Vietnam’s tra fish food safety control system from March 23 to April 28 last year, according to Nafiqad.
On October 5, 2021, FSIS released the final report on its online inspection with the recognition of the Vietnamese tra fish industry’s equivalence.
FSIS announced its inspection into Vietnam’s Siluriformes inspection system from November 2015 to March 2016.
In 2019, the U.S. agency released an announcement recognizing that Vietnam’s food safety control system for tra fish was equivalent to that of the United States.
After the recognition in 2019, FSIS has been periodically inspecting Vietnam’s food safety control system for tra fish to assess whether the country’s system is still equivalent to that of the U.S.
Vietnam exported some US$1.6 billion worth of tra fish in 2021, up 8.4% against 2020. The country’s revenue from tra fish shipment to the United States amounted to US$370 million, up 50.5% year-on-year, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers.
