When a processing plant in Vietnam gets in touch to say raw-material costs have risen and it wants to revise its unit price, the response depends on whether you read it as the plant's own convenience or as the result of the market. On the morning of September 25, 2026, at a meeting with Standing Deputy Prime Minister Pham Gia Tuc, Hang Van, deputy general director of Truong Giang Seafood, said raw fish had risen at one point to 36,000 dong/kg, exceeding the 33,000 dong/kg that the export price converts to. The arithmetic in which a plant goes into the red by buying raw material came straight from the party involved. Pangasius circulates in Japan too as deboned whitefish fry and frozen fillets, so this inverted margin bears on both Japan's procurement prices and volumes. Yen conversions in this article are calculated at 10,000 dong = about ¥61 (the prevailing rate in late September 2026, with US$1 at about 25,940 dong and in the ¥157 range).
'Raw fish at 36,000 dong, export-equivalent 33,000 dong,' as stated at the meeting with the deputy prime minister
The meeting was a forum where exporters and industry bodies for agricultural, forestry, and fishery products put their bottlenecks to the government, and the points raised were funding, taxes, land, raw-material growing areas, traceability, and export procedures. The remark from the pangasius industry came from Hang Van: against raw fish at 36,000 dong/kg (about ¥219), the affordable price worked back from the export price is 33,000 dong/kg (about ¥200). The gap is 3,000 dong/kg, about ¥18.
At the same time, Hang Van said that even when trying to expand high-tech farming zones, there is no consolidated land on which to install water-treatment and recirculation facilities, and asked for the farming-zone plans to be reviewed. The sequence is that they want to expand because raw material is short, but securing the place to expand is blocked first. Many of the companies at the meeting framed it as a need to reconnect seed stock, raw-material quality, and traceability to processing and to demand in export markets.
About 3 kg of raw fish per 1 kg of fillet, so price moves hit amplified
Raw-fish prices and fillet export prices can be lined up and compared because the processing yield is roughly fixed. The standard for pangasius is to raise it for six to eight months and ship it at 800 to 1,100 g, then skin and debone it into fillets. The yield moves with fish size and the degree of trimming, and even in the literature and industry data it splits around 30 to 35% and does not settle on a single figure. Viewing it at the order of roughly 3 kg of raw fish per 1 kg of fillet keeps the price discussion aligned. The rest goes to by-products as skin, bone, belly flap, and fat.
What this ratio means is amplification. If raw fish moves 3,000 dong per kg, that becomes nearly a 10,000-dong difference in the raw-material cost of 1 kg of fillet. From the plant's side, a small rise in raw fish is not small in the product cost. Put the other way, the timing of a plant asking to revise unit prices is explained the moment raw fish moves a few thousand dong.
That said, how the 33,000 dong/kg figure was derived has not been disclosed. Because it does not state which yield was used or how processing costs and by-product revenue were factored in, it is reasonable to read it not as an industry-wide constant but as the break-even point the company drew from its own costs. What is usable for a buyer is less the level itself than the behavior that once raw fish crosses a certain line, plants hold off buying.
Fingerlings hit 90,000 dong at one point, and farmers who emptied their ponds are not coming back
The factor cited locally for the rise in raw fish is a thinning of supply. Pangasius has a six-to-eight-month rearing period. During the stretch of low fish prices, many farmers emptied their ponds, cut stocking, or left the business. When processing and export demand returned, fish that had reached shipping size were not enough for the orders, and prices were pushed up. In reporting from the Mekong Delta, this account is told by both companies and cooperatives.
Seed stock is thin too. Hatchery operators say cold snaps and climate swings have driven high loss rates at the nursery stage, leaving supply short. Fingerlings at 100 fish/kg run about 1,000 dong each (about ¥6), while the 30-to-35-fish/kg size is 70,000 to 75,000 dong/kg (about ¥425 to ¥455), and at one point topped 90,000 dong/kg (about ¥547) — several times the usual level. Fingerling survival rates are reported to fall below 50%, making the decision to stock weightier.
The economics themselves are not bad. By VASEP's calculation, the average production cost is 24,000 to 26,000 dong/kg (about ¥146 to ¥158), and at current fish prices farmers earn a profit of 8,000 to 10,000 dong/kg (about ¥49 to ¥61). That they still do not return is because the input costs of feed, medicine, and fingerlings are high, and the segment running their farms on borrowed money cannot bring itself to restart. On the ground, the refrain remains that feed only rises and never falls. The feed conversion ratio in Vietnam is put at 1.57 to 1.69, a structure in which how costs bite depends heavily on feed prices.
In short, 36,000 dong is not the result of farmers jacking up prices. Supply thinned while costs were already elevated, and both are riding on the price at once. The current market in the Mekong Delta is reported at 33,000 to 35,000 dong/kg for 0.8-to-1-kg raw fish. That is 5,000 to 7,000 dong higher than at the end of 2025, and 36,000 dong is a temporary figure that spiked further above it. A band in which plants cannot buy and farmers cannot expand has formed between 33,000 and 36,000 dong.
By market: China at US$417 million, Japan at US$36.31 million
Demand is growing. According to VASEP, pangasius exports over eight months of 2026 were US$1.5 billion (1,5 tỷ USD, about ¥236 billion), up 10% year on year, and US$205 million in August alone (205 triệu USD), up 6% year on year. The gaps between markets are widening.
| Market | Eight-month value | Year on year | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| China and Hong Kong | US$417 million (417 triệu USD, about ¥65.7 billion) | Up 29% | 27% |
| Japan | US$36.31 million (36,31 triệu USD, about ¥5.7 billion) | Up 20.8% | About 2.4% |
| US | Value not disclosed | about 14% decline | Not disclosed |
| All markets | US$1.5 billion (1,5 tỷ USD) | Up 10% | 100% |
In August alone, China was US$60 million (60 triệu USD), up 18%, and Japan was US$5.47 million (5,47 triệu USD), up 23.7%. Japan outpaces China on growth rate, but the value is two orders of magnitude apart. Over the eight-month cumulative total, China buys more than 11 times Japan's value. VASEP names Brazil as a market lifting growth but has not disclosed its value as of August. What can be confirmed goes as far as the framing that demand is backed by its role as a substitute for higher-priced animal protein.
The US fell more than 50% in August alone and about 14% over eight months. VASEP cites a buildup of tariffs as the cause: a 10% import surcharge applied for 150 days from February 24, 2026, and after it ended on July 24, a 12.5% additional duty under Section 301 was added. In the case of pangasius, this stacks on top of the existing anti-dumping duty. In the POR21 final results the US Department of Commerce released on August 12, company-specific rates rose sharply from the preliminary values: Bien Dong Seafood from US$0.29 to 1.00/kg, CASEAMEX and NAVICO from US$0.23 to 0.84/kg, NTSF Seafoods from US$0.07 to 0.38/kg, while the nationwide uniform rate applied to companies without an individual rate was left at US$2.39/kg.
What local farmers and plants are saying now
VASEP's calculation is that at current fish prices farmers are left with 8,000 to 10,000 dong/kg, but the stories coming from the ground are not driven by the economics alone.
The chairman of a pangasius cooperative in Can Tho says that because feed and aquaculture-medicine prices keep rising and never fall, many farmers cannot step into the next cycle. All 28 member households of this cooperative have stopped farming for several months, and the cooperative itself has suspended operations. Unpaid fish payments from processing companies remain on the order of 1 billion dong (about ¥6.07 million), and the chairman is working to collect them, but because the other side is also short of funds it is not resolved. The explanation was that the farmers still farming are the segment with spare own funds, while those running on borrowed money have not restarted.
The buying side is cautious too. The president of a processing company in the Thot Not district of Can Tho says that even with fish prices rising he is not stepping in deeply, farming only as much as his own products for the domestic market require. He once handled exports as well, but after a run of disagreements with trading partners he no longer draws up long-term plans.
What Japanese buyers should take from this president's remarks is a change in the pattern of purchasing. Previously, import buyers set plans around the busy periods at the start, middle, and end of the year and bought accordingly, but as market conditions became harder to read, this shifted to handling things season by season and order by order. Buyers who can offer a long-term volume outlook have become scarce on the ground.
When China and Brazil bid up, where does Japan stand in line?
When raw material is short, plants pick their orders. The criteria for picking are volume, simplicity of specification, and speed of payment. This is where the differing characters of each market show.
In VASEP's description, China-bound shipments cover both consumer-use and processing-use product groups. Including raw material routed for reprocessing means the finishing specifications are relatively loose and orders carry a lighter workload per container. Japan-bound shipments, by contrast, are explicitly centered on skinned, deboned frozen fillets. Size specs, yield specs, and foreign-matter standards pile up, so even from the same raw fish the process is more labor-intensive. At a scale that is one-eleventh of China by value, and with the heavier workload at that, it is natural as a plant's judgment for Japan to fall to the back. Brazil, too, is a market that takes volume on the strength of low prices and lines up ahead of Japan.
On order alone, Japan looks disadvantaged. But the industry's view is different. The pangasius industry sets its 2026 export target at US$2.3 billion (2,3 tỷ USD, up 5% year on year) and names the Middle East, ASEAN, and Japan as the regions with the most headroom toward that goal. The framing is that keeping China's supply rhythm while opening up these three is the key. In other words, Japan sits in the position of a market that is small in volume but named as a destination worth growing. In place of pushing on volume, there is room here to negotiate on the value of being a steady repeat buyer. the account of how Kyokuyo expanded its handling of Vietnamese pangasius and lifted exports to Japan by 20% is a move that rides on this same trend.
Contract form and specifications can change the odds of being able to buy
The moves split into three layers.
One is the contract form. The fact that local companies are shifting to order-by-order handling also means, flipped around, that a buyer able to offer a term contract stands out. In exchange for committing volume and duration, you can negotiate to claim supply priority when raw material eases. Rather than insisting on a fixed price, it is more realistic to include a revision clause that references the raw-fish price. VASEP publishes weekly aquaculture raw-material prices by growing area such as Dong Thap, so both sides can revise while looking at the same figures. Even when setting a floor price, given that the farming side's cost is at the 24,000-to-26,000 dong/kg level, you can gauge where to lay the floor so that the counterpart can keep stocking its ponds.
The second is revising specifications. The mainstream raw-fish size is 0.8 to 1 kg per fish, and demanding larger fish extends the rearing period and, when supply is thin, carries a premium. Adjustments such as widening the size range by one step, dropping the trimming grade by one step, or loosening the weight tolerance on fillets can create yield without touching unit price. When comparing prices, align the glaze ratio and moisture and restate on a net-weight basis. Even at the same 1 kg, if the actual fish-meat content differs, a unit-price comparison does not hold.
The third is switching the species. the trend in which tilapia to Japan rose 77% over eight months, with 1.7-kg brackish-water fish going to sashimi becomes an option for filling the whitefish slot with something other than pangasius. In response to the shortage of wild whitefish, Vinh Hoan is expanding its sales channels into Japan as well, and so the supply side is also coming to build an alternative receptacle. If the use is cooked, swapping the species is easy to push through; if the use is raw consumption, the difficulty rises. Taking stock of your own uses and counting in advance how many slots can be swapped changes the latitude you have in price negotiations.
As US-bound supply thins, the way it circulates onto Japan's shelves also changes
The fact that US-bound supply fell about 14% over eight months and dropped below half in August works in two directions for Japan. One is that, because what can no longer go to the US is redirected to other markets, supply may ease over the medium term. The other is that, with the production lines built for US yields and specifications now idle, it becomes easier to discuss specifications.
That said, whether supply eases is determined by the speed of the raw-fish recovery. Until fingerling supply and stocking return and fish reach shipping size six to eight months later, the raw-material side stays jammed even if export destinations shrink. The next shipments will thicken more than half a year after stocking has truly returned. Reading this as if the US shrinks, I can buy cheaply without accounting for this time lag means missing the timing to secure supply.
There are moves on the Brazil side too. the Brazilian processing industry is proposing an annual import quota of 16,200 tonnes for Vietnamese tilapia fillets, so the way tilapia and pangasius get through to Brazil may diverge. If you look at tilapia as a switch destination, you will be following this quota debate alongside it.
What Japanese buyers should do next in this market
A plant's request for a price increase is explained by the party's own figures of raw fish at 36,000 dong and an export equivalent of 33,000 dong. Once you read it as the result of the market rather than greed, the subject of negotiation becomes terms, not price.
The realistic sequence is to first re-tie the price basis of current contracts to the raw-fish price. Because weekly raw-material prices by growing area are published, a reference index can be prepared. Next, by your own use, count how far specifications can be loosened and how many slots can be switched away from pangasius. Then, starting from the uses where you can commit volume and duration, bring in a term contract and trade it for supply priority. Because the phase in which raw fish eases comes more than half a year after the stocking recovery, arrange your supply for the interim in advance.
When approaching a counterpart plant, the first thing to ask is the ratio of its own ponds to contract farming. The more a plant relies on its own ponds, the more it can absorb raw-fish increases internally. Then confirm which index it uses to watch the raw-fish procurement price. If the counterpart watches the weekly prices by growing area, the revision-clause discussion goes through as is. Finally, ask whether the Japan-bound line is drawn from the same raw fish as the China-bound line. If it is the same raw fish, Japan-bound orders fall to the back when raw material thins. Ask this far and you see both the counterpart's room to absorb a price increase and the risk of orders being deprioritized.
Sources
- VietnamBiz, 'Giá cá tra nguyên liệu cao hơn giá xuất khẩu, doanh nghiệp gặp khó thu mua' (original source: the government e-newspaper)
- VASEP「Xuất khẩu cá tra 8 tháng: Duy trì đà tăng, Trung Quốc và Brazil tạo lực đẩy」
- VASEP「Mỹ công bố kết quả cuối cùng POR21 thuế chống bán phá giá cá tra Việt Nam」
- Tiền Phong「Giá cá tra tăng kỷ lục, vì sao người nuôi vẫn ‘treo ao’?」
- Soha, 'Trung Quốc, Nhật Bản, Brazil đồng loạt báo tin vui cho Việt Nam' (market-by-market breakdown of VASEP statistics)
- Doanh nghiệp & Tiếp thị「Xuất khẩu cá tra sang Nhật Bản tăng hơn 20%」
- The Fish Site, 'Pangasius farming: an overview' (rearing period, shipping size, yield per unit area)
- Aqua Culture Asia Pacific, 'Pangasius fish nutrition revealed' (feed conversion ratio)
