Higher price for imported pangasius in the UK

Frozen pangasius fillets from Vietnam priced at US$3.07 per kilogram averagely, up 1.7 percent against US$3.02 per kilogram a year ago.

Compared to some white meat fish species, imports of pangasius into the U.K. market has been at low level. According to the International Trade Center (ITC), through March 2014, the U.K. imported nearly 21,000 MT of frozen cod fillets and 7,068 MT of frozen Alaska pollock fillets. Its purchase of frozen pangasius fillets was about 50 percent of the volume of frozen Alaska pollock fillets.

Vietnam Customs reported that, through May 15, 2014, Vietnamese pangasius to the U.K. had a worth of US$12.5 million, up 0.5 percent year on year. The U.K. was the 4^th largest consumer of Vietnamese pangasius in the EU.

According to statistics from ITC, between January and March, British buyers purchased 2,629 MT of frozen pangasius fillets, compared to 1,901 MT in the same period of 2013. Vietnam ranked the first among suppliers of this kind of fish to this market, representing 96.2 percent of British total pangasius imports. Vietnam got growth in pangasius sales to the U.K. while other two suppliers – the Netherlands and Poland – saw drop in this period.

There was a little volume of fresh and chilled pangasius and catfish fillets entering the U.K. in Q.I/2014. The market sourced 65 MT of these products from China, Iceland and the Netherlands, compared to 225 MT a year ago. The drop was because British importers did not buy fresh and chilled pangasius fillets from Vietnam in the first months of the year. In Q.I/2013, China had no exports of fresh and chilled catfish fillets to the U.K., but there were 21 MT of Chinese catfish entered the market in Q.I/2014. Iceland was the U.K.’s largest supplier of fresh and chilled pangasius and catfish, followed by the Netherlands and China.