Vietnam’s seafood export turnover soars 28%

Vietnam’s seafood industry continued to make an outstanding growth in the first four months of the year, with the export turnover jumping nearly 28 percent to US$1.6 billion.

A man watches seafood price lists at a HCMC-based supermarket. Seafood was Vietnam’s top export last year, with the turnover of US$1.6 billion (Photo:Minh Tri)

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) expected that the Pacific white shrimp and prawn will remain Vietnam’s strategic exports in the upcoming years, with an average turnover estimated to reach $2 billion per year.

Among other seafood export are tra fish (pangasius), which ranked second behind prawn with a turnover of nearly $1.5 billion.

Surveys from the Food and Agriculture Organisation show Vietnam is one of the world’s 20 seafood exporters

John Nielsen, Danish Ambassador to Vietnam, said Denmark can provide seafood processing firms of the Southeast Asian partner with modern equipments and techniques as the European country is popular with its environmentally friendly model of fish farms.

The MARD expected that the seafood export turnover this year will increase 10 percent year-on-year to $5.5 billion.

The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers said the goal will be able to achieve as the seafood industry has many advantages this year, including strong dollar and the rising consumption of aquatic foods around the world.

Despite the competition worldwide getting fiercer, experts predicted Vietnam’s seafood exporters can overtake their foreign competitors thanks to the country’s stable material supply.

The MARD also submitted Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s approval to create a new fund to promote and support Vietnamese tra fish exports.

Under the plan, tra fish exporters will contribute 1-2 US cents on every kilogram of fish they sell to the fund, which will also receive local and international donations. The fund will be used to promote the fish in the US and EU markets and develop strategies to protect Vietnamese exporters against false safety allegations and unfair trade barriers.

Vietnam is the supplier of more than 95 percent of tra fish on the global market with an annual output of 1.5 million tons, the Vietnam Economic Times reported last week, citing the national seafood association.

The World Wildlife Fund last year blacklisted Vietnam’s tra fish in a consumer guide published in several EU countries. Although the organization later removed the fish from its “red list”, consumption of Vietnamese tra fish in Europe has been negatively affected.

Meanwhile, the US Department of Commerce has recently cut anti-dumping taxes on tra fish imported from some Vietnamese companies to zero percent, compared to a previously proposed tax rate of 130 percent.

Despite the recent achievements, experts warn the seafood industry still has to deal with many problems.

“Vietnam’s prawn entered 82 countries around the world, with 80 percent of the export turnover coming from 10 key markets including the US, Japan and Korea. However, local export prices are often lower than other countries’ as Vietnamese exporters fail to meet the time of delivery,” said a director of a HCMC-based seafood producer.

“Some of them even receive purchase orders without checking whether their production capacity can meet up the orders or not.” – SGGP

Tags: Vietnam Seafood, Vietnam seafood exports