(vasep.com.vn) Up to 15th August 2013, Vietnam seafood exports reached US$3.8 billion, up 3.2% from the same period last year. In which, shrimp exports increased by nearly 18%, pangasius down 1.1%, tuna fell 3.4%, other seafood items decreased by 4.6% - 16%.
According to Report on Vietnam seafood exports in QII/2013, exports of key products like pangasius, shrimp, squid and cephalopod dropped in Q.I/2013. while tuna and other marine fish products rose in value but the growth was slowing down. In Q.II/2013, the reversal trend was clearer as shrimp sales strongly increased, pangasius reported slight rise, while tuna and other marine fish sharply dropped. Squid and octopus exports were still on the downtrend since 2012.
Shrimp: Exports up 17 percent in Q.II/2013, leading to a rise of 8.6 percent to US$1.1 billion of total value in the first half of 2013. This rise was because of higher shrimp prices in the global market, which was facing lack of supply from main producing countries like Thailand and China due to serious EMS disease. At the same time, shrimp production in Vietnam was recovering because farmers rescheduled shrimp stocking method to prevent EMS disease.
Pangasius: Sales of pangasius products rose up 7.7 percent in Q.II/2013, but the first half’s value was down 0.5 percent to US$850 million. This was not a clear recovery in the sector, especially when demands from the EU market have still been weak.
Marine products: Exports of these products showed sharp drop and would hardly recover in the coming time. Tuna sales abroad decreased by 10.6 percent, marine fish and surimi down 2.3 percent in Q.II/2013. In January - June 2013, gain from tuna exports rose only 2.7 percent to US$294 million; while marine fish and surimi down 4.2 percent to US$385 million. This was caused by unstable supply of raw material, high inventories in global market after strongly increasing imports in 2011 and 2012, weakened consumption demand, tightened quality control policy by some importing markets. Other products like squid and octopus stumbled 23 percent to US$193 million.
