(vasep.com.vn) Taiwanese people often like fresh, live finfish and seafood. However, due to busy life today and local people’s higher income, more and more people go shopping in supermarkets.
Taiwanese’s demand of seafood (processed and frozen finfish and seafood) is increasingly high and will be higher in the near future. This is an opportunity for Vietnam exporters of tuna (particularly value-added and processed tuna products) to speed up export to the market. Taiwanese government is encouraging local people to use farmed fish instead of marine fish because of increasingly high price, limited supply and strong consumption of marine finfish.
In 2010, Vietnam tuna export value to Taiwan touched US$4.3 million, up 127 percent against 2009. However, in 2011, tuna export value to the market declined by 31.9 percent. According to Vietnam Customs, from the early 2012 to March 15th 2012, Vietnam seafood exports to Taiwan hit US$17.5 million in which tuna only occupied 2.4 percent with export value of US$ 410.8 thousand, marking a 7.4 percent reduction against the same period of 2011.
Processed tuna products (HS 16 code) accounted for 86 percent of total Vietnam tuna export value to Taiwan.