(vasep.com.vn) The number of Vietnam seafood exporters in 2012 reduced by 30% due to some main difficulties such as capital shortage for production and processing and lower demands in import markets. Among the enterprises who has suspended exports, pangasius enterprises accounted a significant proportion. Surviving enterprises are mostly ones having stable capital and strong foothold in the markets. Top 20 pangasius exporters with the export turnover of US$1.071 billion made up 61.4 percent of Vietnam’s total pangasius export value of US$1.745 billion.
There are 5 problems confronted by pangasius exporters in 2012 as following:
- Shortage of capital for producing and processing: It was the biggest obstacle of pangasius production and trade activities in 2012. Due to tightened credit, pangasius exporters as well as farmers hardly accessed to the loans with a low interest rate of nearly 11.4 percent.
- Unstable supply of raw pangasius: Lack of information on market demands and farming plan led to unstable supply of raw pangasius. Some exporters often lacked of raw fish in certain times to meet importers’ orders for products with selected sizes, types and delivery time.
- Low demand from importing markets, especially in 2 key markets such as EU and the U.S., accounting for 45 percent of Vietnam’s total pangasius export value.
- Pangasius is losing its real value in the market due to competition among domestic players and supply-demand imbalance: Lack of planning and close management from authorities, spontaneous development of the pangasius sector led to oversupply of raw fish in comparison with demand. The redundancy in fish export volume also put high pressure on fish price.
Besides, pangasius exports have been affected by technical barriers from markets and biased news on Vietnam pangasius, especially in EU.
