In May alone, export of Vietnamese squid and octopus increased by 16.8% compared to May 2017, reaching US $ 63.56 million. But in June, that only increased 1.4%, reaching US $ 59.25 million, bringing the total value of exports in the first 6 months to over US $ 298 million, up 11% year on year.
Squid products were still the main export products among squid and octopus market value share, accounting for 54% - 56%. The rest was octopus products. Among squid export products, live/fresh/frozen squid (code HS03) contributed the largest share in terms of value, next was dried and grilled squid (code HS03), which were US $ 89.46 million and US $ 64.86 million respectively, accounted for 54.58% and 39.57% in the first 6 months of 2018. For Octopus export, dried/fermented/live/fresh/frozen items (code HS03) contributed 79% export value, reaching US $ 106.33 million in the first half of the year.
In terms of import market, S. Korea was the biggest import market of Squid and Octopus products from Viet Nam in the first 6 months, accounting for 36.9% in terms of value, reaching US $ 110.14 million, up 16.4% year on year. In June alone, S. Korea imported US $ 23.14 million, up 21.1% compared to June 2017. During the first half of this year, exports of Vietnamese octopus products to S. Korea increased the most, up 21% over the same period last year. It was also the main export product of Viet Nam to S. Korea, accounting for more than 71% of total exports. Among them, export of processed octopus products were boosted to this market.
Japan stood at second place during the first half of 2018 with US $ 68.25 million, accounted for 22.9% of value and up 8.4% year on year. Exports to Japan have recovered. In the Japanese market, export of squid and octopus has shown signs of recovery but growth rate was fluctuated sharply during the second quarter of the year. In April, squid and octopus export to Japan decreased 3.9% compared to April 2017, then up 8.6% in May while in June, up slightly of 2.2%.
After being replace by ASEAN at the third position in May, in June, EU gained its place again even though its import value of squid and octopus products in the first 6 months was at US $ 39.49 million, decreased by 23.4% year on year. That rate in June was -35.8% and US $ 7.88 million. Italy, Spain and France continued to be the three largest import markets for squid and octopus from Viet Nam. Spain was the only market among the 3 big import market in EU block got the positive growth rate of 52.5% while those of Italia and France were – 30.4% and -27.9% respectively. However, growth in exports to Spain has slowed compared to 86.8% in May and 62% in April 2018.
Russia was the import market who had the biggest growth rate during the first 6 months, with only US $ 2.74 million in value, accounted for 0.9% of value share, but increased by 339.4% compared to the same period last year. China and Hong Kong also had a big growth of 69.7%, equal to US $ 24.43 million, accounted for 8.3% value share.
Huong Tra