VietNamNet Bridge – The rapid-fire bad news has come recently, leading to the pessimistic forecasts about the future of the Vietnam’s catfish industry.

Ten years ago, catfish (“tra” as called by Vietnamese) was called the “golden fish” because it brought big money to Vietnamese farmers.

Vietnam’s catfish exports, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), satisfied 99.9 percent of the world’s market.

The large export market and the encouraging profits then led to the establishment of a lot of catfish processing and export companies, which exported billions of dollars worth of catfish products every year. A lot of Vietnamese farmers reportedly became billionaires thanks to the catfish farming.

The catfish farming began meeting big difficulties in 2011, when the national economy suffered from the downturn, while the competition got stiffer. The low export prices pushed a lot of export companies against the wall.

In 2012, Lam Ngoc Khuan, President of Phuong Nam Food Processing Company, a big catfish exporter, unexpectedly disappeared after Phuong Nam finished the construction a villa worth tens of billions of dong as the head office.

Some months later, Khuan reportedly sent a letter from the US to the banks, clients and partners in Vietnam, saying that he wished the commercial banks to deal with the company.

Phuong Nam, like many other companies in the same business field, has fallen into decay, though it was listed among the 10 seafood companies with the highest export turnover. Binh An, Thien Ma have reportedly incurred big debts, while some smaller companies have shut down their business or maintained the production at a moderate level.

Nhip Cau Dau tu has quoted Truong Dinh Hoe, Secretary General of VASEP as saying that the catfish export turnover has not increased recently.

In 2013, the catfish export turnover reached $1.8 billion, a modest increase of 3.4 percent over 2012, but just equal to that of 2011. Meanwhile, Hoe thinks the export turnover would decrease by 5 percent this year.

The newspaper has also quoted Duong Ngoc Minh, General Director of Hung Vuong Seafood Company, a big guy in the field, as saying that the company does not increase the catfish output, because the business is not as profitable as before.

In late 2013, Hung Vuong successfully mobilized VND1.2 trillion worth of foreign capital. However, Minh affirmed that he would not pour the money into catfish, but the sum of money would be used to develop the retail networks overseas.

Hung Vuong plans to join forces with its partners to expand the retail network to improve its capacity of supplying farm produce to the US market. It also considers making heavier investment in some Asian markets and expanding the farming areas in Indonesia.

Vinh Hoan Seafood Company has also made investments in many different business fields in recent years after realizing that the profits from catfish have become no longer attractive.

Two rice husking factories and one collagen production factory have been set up. The official website of the company not only shows the images of catfish, but also the images of rice and collagen products as well.

In recent news, Russia has imposed the ban on the catfish imports from Vietnam after Russian concerned agencies visited and inspected some farming areas and processing factories in Vietnam.

Meanwhile, the door to the US market is believed to be closed for Vietnam once the US applies the Farm Bill.

Kim Chi