(seafood.vasep.com.vn) Korea is Vietnam's fifth largest shrimp import market, accounting for 9.5% of Vietnam's total shrimp export value. Vietnam's shrimp exports to this market, after declining in August due to social distancing to prevent the Covid-19 epidemic, showed signs of recovery in September and the first half of October this year.
In the first 9 months of 2021, although Vietnam's shrimp exports to South Korea did not increase sharply, they maintained a positive growth momentum from March to June. In July and August, exports to this market decreased because enterprises had reduced capacity in the first nine months of 2021. Covid-19 pandemic prevention period. Shrimp exports to this market in September recovered slightly by 3.6% to 30.8 million USD. In the first half of October this year, shrimp exports to South Korea increased by 26% over the same period last year. From the beginning of the year to the first half of October 2021, Vietnam's shrimp exports to South Korea reached nearly 278 million USD, up 0.9% over the same period in 2020.
Signs of recovery in shrimp exports to the Korean market are also in the plan of enterprises to boost exports to Asian markets to take advantage of the close distance and lower logistics costs compared to European and European markets. America. In the last months of this year, the Korean market is increasing import demand to meet people's consumption needs for year-end festivals and New Year's.
It is expected that Vietnam's shrimp exports to South Korea in the last quarter of this year will still record positive growth. Vietnam's shrimp exports to this market for the whole year of 2021 are expected to increase by about 3-5% compared to last year.
Korea mainly imports whiteleg shrimp from Vietnam with the proportion of 85% while the proportion of black tiger shrimp accounts for only 4%. In the first 9 months of this year, Korea increased imports of processed vannamei shrimp (HS code 16) and live/fresh/frozen black tiger shrimp (HS code 03) by 5% and 12%, respectively, and imported live/fresh/frozen marine shrimp. cold (HS code 03) increased the most by 41%.