Seafood export got the advantage early 2011

Facing continuous difficulties and challenges (including the scarcity of raw materials, lack of workers, antidumping, high taxes, etc) of both foreign and domestic markets in 2010, Vietnamese seafood enterprises still made the efforts to lead seafood export value to the target of US$5 billion and Vietnam became one of 10 leading seafood exporting countries in the world, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to VASEP.

Since the first month of 2011, Vietnamese seafood export has been quite favorable. In January 2011, Vietnam exported seafood to 114 markets worldwide with the participation of 641 enterprises. Total seafood export reached 112.8 thousand MT, worth US$434.4 million, up 15.7 percent in volume and 39 percent in value over the same period last year.

EU, the U.S. and Japan remained three largest exporters of Vietnamese seafood at that time. Although export to these markets has not yet "easy" due to their technical barriers as well as restrictions on product quality such as trifluralin infected shrimp, with efforts and determination of exporters, Vietnamese seafood export still grew strongly. In January 2011, seafood export to EU increased by 20.7 percent in volume and 43.2 percent in value, to the U.S. rose 59.1 percent and 76.6 percent, respectively; to Japan rose 15.9 percent and 35.2 percent, respectively compared to the same period last year.

 In addition to maintaining mentioned above traditional markets, Vietnamese seafood enterprises boost export to other markets with great potential such as South Korea, China, Middle East ... In 2010, South Korea imported US$386.2 million of seafood from Vietnam, accounting for 7.7 percent of total seafood export value of the country. In January 2011, seafood export to Korea reached nearly 10 million MT, worth over US$34.6 million, up 21.7 percent in volume and 33.8 percent in value against the same period of 2010. With the growth of South Korean economy as the current, it is forecasted that the demand for imported seafood for domestic consumption in this country will continue to increase in the future.

Besides South Korea, China also tends to move from seafood exporting country to importing one for processing. In January 2011, China imported nearly 2.65 thousand MT of seafood from Vietnam, worth US$15.5 million.

Shrimp and pangasius were two main export items of Vietnam. The scarcity of domestic raw material sources caused the price of shrimp and pangasius to increase strongly. However, the competitiveness of these two items in the international market was not lower. In January 2011, Vietnamese shrimp export increased by 27.5 percent in volume and 46.8 percent in value; pangasius export also increased by 9.1 percent and 24.8 percent, respectively compared to the same period of 2010.

Export of tuna and mollusk also kept the strong growth of 2010. In January 2011, export turnover of tuna and mollusk increased by 62.6 percent and 52.5 percent, respectively.