(seafood.vasep.com.vn) After a slight decrease in the first two months of the year due to the impact of Covid-19 epidemic, Vietnamese cephalopod exports to China has recovered slightly in March and increased sharply in April 2020. It is expected that exports of cephalopod to this market will continue to grow well in May.
Vietnamese cephalopod exports to China dropped by double digits in January and February 2020. In March 2020, cephalopod exports to this market rose by 4%, and in April 2020 exports recorded a surge of 304% compared to the same period in 2019, reaching US$ 4.3 million. From the beginning of the year to the first half of May 2020, Vietnamese cephalopod exports to China reached US$10.4 million, up 17.2% over the same period in 2019.
In the first two months of 2020, the Covid-19 epidemic caused cargo transportation activities in China to stall. The demand for squid and octopus in restaurants has decreased due to the government's measures to prevent the spread of diseases. Cephalopod import demand for processing also declined as Chinese processors were being canceled their orders and did not receive new requests from markets such as the US, EU, and Japan. Since March 2020, the Covid-19 epidemic in China has eased. Besides, countries such as the US, EU, and Japan have gradually relaxed isolation measures to prevent and combat the disease. Therefore, the demand for Chinese cephalopod recovered.
China mainly imports from Vietnam such as frozen whole cleaned cuttlefish, frozen classified squid, frozen Tempura breaded squid, dried squid, frozen cut octopus, frozen whole cleaned octopus ... In the structure of squid, octopus of Vietnam exports to China, squid accounted for 72%, octopus represened for 28%.