Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities Wednesday criticized a US decision to maintain anti-dumping duties on catfish imports from Vietnam.

The US International Trade Commission said Monday it would keep the tariff on frozen fillets of Vietnamese catfish, known in the US as "basa" and "tra," for fear that lifting the duty would harm the domestic catfish industry within a "reasonably foreseeable time."

The punitive tariff is part of a five-year review process involved in Vietnam's entry into the World Trade Organization.

"Vietnam does not agree with the decision and we protest it," said Nguyen Thanh Bien, Vietnam's deputy minister of trade and industry. "In this economic context, this decision shows the heavy protectionism of the US judicial and executive agencies."

"This decision is highly nonsensical, and will continue to cause difficulties for us," said Nguyen Viet Thang, chairman of Vietnam's Fishery Association.

However, Thang said Vietnamese exporters were more concerned with an upcoming decision as to whether to reclassify basa and tra as catfish under the US farm bill.

In 2002, under pressure from local catfish farmers, the US passed legislation forbidding basa and tra from being marketed as catfish. Now, American producers want basa and tra to be considered as catfish so they will have to meet stringent safety standards imposed in 2008, after banned antibiotics were found in Chinese seafood imports.

"If the law is approved, it will be very hard for Vietnamese tra and basa to enter the US market," said Thang.

In May, the US sentenced a Vietnamese-American man to five years in prison and 12 million dollars in fines for re-labeling imports of Vietnamese tra and basa as other species of fish to circumvent the anti-dumping duties.

Vietnamese seafood exports rose from 3.75 billion dollars in 2007 to 4.5 billion dollars last year.

The country's largest seafood export market is the EU at 1.14 billion dollars, followed by Japan and the US at 0.8 billion dollars and 0.7 billion dollars respectively.(dpa)