Seafood export: Remaining good growth rate even the difficulties (13-06-2018)
Since early of this year, country’s seafood export recorded a remarkable growth even though facing difficulties from key export markets such as the US and EU as well as from internal difficulties.
According to the latest statistics from Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, seafood export value in May was estimated at US $ 671 million, bringing the volume of seafood export in the first 5 months to US $ 3.12 billion, up 9.7 per cent over the same period of 2017. The United States, Japan, China and Korea were the top 4 importing markets for Vietnamese seafood in the first four months, accounting for 52.7 per cent of the total seafood export value. Import markets recorded a significant increase of growth rate in the first four months were the Netherlands (60.2 per cent), China (28.8 per cent), the UK (27.4 per cent) and Germany (27 per cent).
For shrimp products, in the first 5 months, market demand for black tiger shrimp was table while demand and price for white leg shrimp was dropped out dramatically, caused by sharp increase in harvest yield in some countries. In particular, shrimp size 70 – 100 units/kg got the sharpest decline at VND 30,000 /kg compared to the beginning of this year. Shrimp price at other sizes was decreased from VND 15,000 – 20,000 /kg.
In contrast, tra fish price continuously increased from the end of last year. Early this year, tra fish price fluctuated at around VND 27,000 – 29,000 /kg but now, it reached a peak of VND 31,000 – 33,000 /kg for the first class. It is forecast that supply of tra fish raw material for export would be limited in this year, leading tra fish price for exporting would stay high and that situation could last until the end of this year.
Country’s seafood export in 2018 is forecast to face negative impacts came from external environment such as the US catfish inspection program in May, high anti-dumping duties from POR13 of US Department of Commerce or “yellow card” warning for Vietnamese seafood products from capture of EC. Besides, Viet Nam fisheries also had to solve internal problems such as lack of raw material for export processing, antibiotics and chemical use in aquaculture, etc. Viet Nam must address these factors effectively in order to take fully advantages of bilateral and multilateral FTAs that going to effort in coming time. Moreover, Vietnamese fisheries had to strengthen its competiveness through building quality of goods, promoting trade, investing in value added products and improving business environment.
Hương Trà