Vietnamese Catfish

Is it a catfish? The answer is not so simple in the US

The Vietnamese catfish which are farmed in the Mekong Delta have sparked a trade row between Vietnam and the United States.

The problem began after Vietnamese farmers - keen to reduce their reliance on rice production - started to export their own catfish to America.

This is something which concerned the US. Especially as their catfish market is worth around $600m a year, and especially after the imported fish started having an impact on this industry.

In fact, the cheaper fish from the far east has eaten into the lucrative market in the US, taking up to 20 per cent of the trade and forcing the price of the fish down.

Import tariff

This was bad news for the American farmers, and prompted the American Government to take drastic action.

Their solution was simple - they slapped a hefty import tariff on the foreign fish and even got the US Senate to pass a law stating that only American catfish could be sold as catfish.

The fish from Vietnam can now only be sold as 'Basa'.

There are strict rules for importing food into the UK. For details please visit the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs website.

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