Seafood exporters cast bigger nets

The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) has forecast a monthly seafood export revenue of roughly US$490-500 million during June and July thanks to price hikes on the world market.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade anticipated that Viet Nam would ship around 130,000-140,000 tonnes of seafood during each month.

Tra fish was set to surpass shrimp in becoming the leading seafood export earner due to a reduction in shrimp export volumes, the ministry said.

During June and July, the US, the EU and Japan are expected to remain the key import markets for Vietnamese seafood products, especially in terms of tra fish, seeing as seafood demand in these markets have been forecast to rise.

Despite being ranked behind tra fish in terms of export volume, industry insiders are still optimistic regarding the export of shrimp.

Vo Thanh Ha, head of the Northeast Asia Division of the MoIT’s Asia-Pacific Department, said that the Japanese market still offered exciting opportunities for the export of shrimp during the next few months seeing as Japanese consumers currently preferred imported frozen seafood to fresh local seafood that might contain radioactive elements following Japan’s recent nuclear disaster.

Ha added that Viet Nam was currently the largest shrimp supplier to the Japanese market, holding a 23 per cent market share. Japan spends roughly $1.9 billion on shrimp imports each year.

A recent Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) report on seafood export has forecast that the monthly seafood export revenues would range from $520 million to $625 million during the second half of 2011.

The MARD report forecast that the annual export value would climb from an earlier expected $5.3 billion to over $6 billion.

During the first five months of the year, Viet Nam exported 526,000 tonnes of seafood, totalling $2.1 billion, up 10.43 and 29 per cent in terms of volume and value. In May alone, seafood exports reached 120,000 tonnes, valued at $480 million, the highest monthly export levels in both volume and value thus far this year. – VNS

Tags: Vietnam seafood exports