Since early this year, Vietnamese shrimp export has not have any huge difficulties, both export volume and value to most major markets have been up sharply.
Among the 10 top Vietnam’s shrimp import markets, only Canada reduced to import this product. In the first 9 months of 2010, shrimp export to China increased greatest with 13,058 MT, worth over US$95 million, up 67.5% in volume and 62.2% in value over the same period last year. Although export price to this market was lower than other markets, export value remained high growth since the beginning of 2010.
Although facing the antidumping duty, shrimp export to the U.S. in the first 9 months of 2010 has still grown very "impressively" with 36,258 MT, worth US$376 million, up 13.9% in volume and nearly 30% in value over the same period last year. That was due to producer community’s outstanding efforts in the status of domestic raw material shortages and acumen, taking advantage of opportunities created by import markets. In the past years, Indonesia has always been a fiercest competitor of Vietnamese shrimp industry. However, since QI, 2010, Indonesian shrimp export to the U.S. has decreased continuously as export volume of Prima JSC – its largest producer and exporter decreased due to infectious diseases. In addition, the U.S. shrimp catches fell compared to last year due to oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico – the U.S. major shrimp catching area making the domestic shrimp supply less more, even causing the shortage.
In 2010, shrimp export to EU has grown remarkably though many country members fell into the serious debt crisis. In the first 9 months of this year, shrimp export to this market has reached 30,980 MT, valued at US$225.5 million, up 10.3% in volume and 18.4% in value over the same period last year. Germany, France and the UK - three leading importers of Vietnamese shrimp seemed to not suffer from this debt crisis. Shrimp export value to these markets increased 56.8%, 12.3% and 6.2%, respectively to France, Germany and England.
2010 has also been a good year for shrimp export to Japan. Since early this year, shrimp export to this market continued to increase. Following the inspection trip to Vietnam seafood processing industry in March 2010, good assessments of Food Safety Department – Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare on the quality and food safety management methods of Vietnam’s seafood processing plants drove forces to shrimp export growth to this market.
It is forecasted that in the remaining months of 2010, Vietnam shrimp export would continue its growth unless markets’ conditions had many big changes.