(pangasius-vietnam.com) To the middle of August 2012, Vietnam has exported US$2.45 million of pangasius products to Indonesia, according to statistic from Vietnam Customs. The fish trade showed positive growth in February, April and June compared to the compatible months of 2011. Particularly, February’s sales to Indonesia reached US$1.3 million, representing the highest growth since the early 2012 and compared to the same time of the previous years. However, no pangasius cargo from Vietnam was sent to Indonesia in May and in the first half of August. Vietnam pangasius trade with this market grew steadily between 2008 and 2010, but has been showing sign of slowdown since 2011.
Some Vietnam exporters said that they have met difficulties in fish export to Indonesia as the country regulated limit of fish import licences and quota. Indonesian pangasius importers are required to mandatorily register to the government authorities to import pangasius, but theyjust receive a very low quota of fish import. Therefore, it is so hard for them to continue purchasing fish from Vietnam though the country is still having high demand for the fish.
Currently, Indonesia has low production of catfish, which is impossible to satisfy strongly rising consumption demand of the species in the domestic market. However, the country decided to tighten pangasius imports to protect its domestic industry.
Indonesian goverment will permit to import fish to compensate low volume of wild catches during the coming months of bad weather. But fish imports into the country just make up 20 percent of its whole fish production for human consumption; other 80 percent come from inside sources.
As pangasius sales showed decline in some foreign markets, it is important that Vietnam pangasius exporters intensify exports of fish to other potential markets like Indonesia to benefit from near distance and less transportation cost.
Currently, Indonesia is also supplier of frozen pangasius fillets, mostly to the U.S. But the country’s export fell from 703 MT of fish in 2008 to nearly 11MT in 2011.
Referring to statistics from Indonesia Fisheries and Marine Affairs, Indonesia’s demand for seafood and fish products keeps increasing over the years. In 2009, households’ seafood consumption reached 30.17 kilogram per person, up 5.96 percent from that of 2005 and up 7.75 percent from 2008.