(vasep.com.vn) Since April 2012, mollusk demand in international markets has been ups and downs. Vietnam exports of these products started to go down in June 2012 and keep this trend in the following months.
In the first eight months of 2012, cephalopod and bivalve mollusk took up 90 percent of mollusk exports of Vietnam. Cephalopod exports in the first eight months showed growth of 7.1 percent in comparison with that of the same period of last year.
However, several months in the period saw the negative growth of this kind of seafood. Bivalve mollusk sales to markets in Jan – Aug 2012 has been ups and downs in each month. In January, bivalve mollusk exports decreased sharply 44 percent over the same month of 2011 and continued to go down from April to August following rebind in February and March.
2012 is the consecutive third year when bivalve mollusk exports of Vietnam faced to a gloomy prospect.
Lower demand of EU affected to bivalve mollusk sales of Vietnam in the first eight months of this year. This year, raw material of mollusk in the domestic market increased over the last year but orders from EU customers has lessened which leading to lower exports of mollusk.
Reports on seafood consumption in EU by CBI (Center for the Promotion of Imports from developing countries), mollusk products, used to be favorite food of Southern European, have not been appeared in the households. To Western and Northern European people, in the current situation, mollusks become luxury items.
According to International Trade Center, in June 2012, world demand to mollusk products decreased 15 percent over June 2011 and continues to go down 3.55 percent in July. In the two months, mollusk exports into South Korea, Japan, the U.S, Italia, France and China showed negative growth of 2 – 15 percent due to impacts of economic crisis.
In the last months of the year, it is expected that mollusk (especially cephalopod) exports of Vietnam would recovery thanks to higher demand in international markets in end-year holidays.