(vasep.com.vn) Located in the southern Europe and along with the Atlantic Ocean, Portugal is a traditional producer and consumer of tuna.
According to statistics of the association of French seafood canners Federation Nationale des Conserveries Cooperatives (FIAC), Portugal’s average tuna consumption reached 1.42 kilogram per capita, ranking the third position in EU block, after Spain and Italy.
Portugal is one of four main canned tuna suppliers for European countries. In the past, along with other countries, Portugal imported frozen/fresh tuna to produce canned tuna. Now, despite ongoing global economic crisis and hiking average import price of tuna, the countries tend to import more and more processed tuna (including cooked tuna loin) due to rising production costs in their countries.
Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Communities) showed that Portugal mostly purchased processed tuna products (HS code 16) from Spain, Mauritius, Ecuador, China and Germany. In 2011, processed tuna products (HS code 16) imports into Portugal from these five origins hit US$69.9 million, accounting for over 96 percent out of total export value of these products. In which imports from Spain took the proportion of 80.3 percent; Mauritius with the proportion of 5.7 percent; Ecuador with 5.4 percent; China with 2.3 percent and Germany with 2.1 percent.
In the past years, Portugal is an unattractive market to Vietnam exporters of processed tuna. However, in 2012, Vietnam exporters of processed tuna started to intensify shipping their products to the market. Eurostat’s statistics in the first 8 months of 2012, Vietnam is one of 17 exporters of canned and processed tuna products to Portugal.
In the first 9 months of 2012, Vietnam tuna exports to Portugal touched US$1,276,556, up more than 581 percent from that of the same period of 2011. Besides frozen tuna fillet/steaks, exporters also shipped other tuna products, particularly dried/frozen/live/fresh tuna (HS code 03) which represented the largest proportion with 43 percent in structure of Vietnam tuna exports to Portugal for the year to date. Through the year to now, shipment of products (HS code 03) to Portugal reached US$550,800.
According to latest statistics of Vietnam Customs, in Q.IV/2012, Vietnam still keeps on exporting its tuna to Portugal while Vietnam tuna was only exported to the market in the first three quarters of 2011. With its advantages, Vietnam tuna exports to the market set to remain growth until the end of the year.