US increased imports of Vietnam octopus

2017 is a good year for Vietnam’s cephalopod enterprises exporting to the U.S. While the export value of key commodities such as shrimp and pangasius to the U.S decreased slightly, shipments of squid and octopus to this market achieved the impressive growth at 2-3 digit level in many months.

In 2017, except in January and April with falls of 37.9% and 25.5% respectively, Vietnam’s cephalopod exports to the U.S in the remaining months continuously increased and inched up over 500% in some month. In the first half of Dec 2017, this number rocketed to 759.3%. Exports of frozen squid (HS code 03) and frozen octopus (HS code 03) to the U.S remained the large share with the same value of over US$3 million.

It is interesting that Americans tended to consume Vietnam octopus in the last months of 2017, the export value of this product to the U.S increased by 309.6% over the same period in 2016 while the export value of squid item rose by over 40%.

According to statistics of Trade map, the U.S imported cephalopod from 38 suppliers in the world with the value of US$370 million, down 27.6% over the same period in 2016. In particular, Vietnam was currently the 9^th largest supplier of the item to this market.

Recently, Vietnam cephalopod had to compete strongly with the same item from China, India and Taiwan in the U.S. The average import price of Vietnam cephalopod currently quoted at US$7.69/kg.