9 highlights on Vietnam seafood production and export in Q.II/2012

News 10:58 06/09/2012 LH

(vasep.com.vn) In the first quarter of 2012, Vietnam seafood enterprises had to struggle with a great number of challenges related to capital, raw material supply, input cost and great range of complex administrative procedures. On the turn to the second quarter, the mentioned challenges have still dominated the fisheries industry, in which lack of capital has been seen as the most concerning issue, hurting the fish processing and export activities. The state of Vietnam fisheries industry in Q.II/2012 could be figured out through the 9 following highlights:

1. Higher fishing and aquaculture production, but lower raw material prices: According to statistics from Directorate of Fisheries (D-Fish), in Q.II/2012, Vietnam fishing and aquaculture production was estimated to total 1.5 million MT, up 39 percent compared to the previous quarter and up 3 percent from the same period of 2011. The fishing sector caught 667 MT, up 19 percent from Q.I/2012 but down 0.1 percent from Q.II/2011. Aquaculture sector reached 826 MT, up 61 percent from Q.I/2012 and 5.8 percent from Q.II/2011.

2. Stronger imports of raw material from outside for processing: Vietnam tends to import more fish for processing as its domestic supply remained unstable and price of raw material kept rising as a result of higher input costs. In the second quarter of 2012, the country bought a total of 173.4 million USD of raw fish from outside. In January – June 2012, it imported raw fish from 69 countries and territories with the whole value of US$331 million, including US$13 million from returned fish cargo.

3. Slow down in export growth: Despite many challenges in Q.I/2012, Vietnam seafood exporters still reached growth of 15.3 percent from the same quarter of 2011. However, they saw sales abroad fall to 6 percent of growth in the second quarter of the year. In which, sales in June alone reported the lowest growth of 1.3 percent because of drop in shrimp trade (-4 percent), pangasius (-14.4 percent), mollusk (-5.5 percent).

4. Drop in export to the EU as a result of regional economic crisis: Economic crisis in the EU was considered as the main cause of declining demand for seafood products. Vietnam’s export to this region showed consecutive drop in January – June 2012. In the first quarter, seafood export to the EU stumbled by 7.9 percent from the same period last year. Drop in export revenue continued to go down in the second quarter by 15.5 percent. In June alone, Vietnam sales plummeted 20 percent. In Q.II/2012, the EU fell to the second position among Vietnam’s key importing markets.

5. Slow down in trade with South Korea and China: In Q.I/2012, Vietnam export to China was up almost 20 percent from the same quarter of 2011. Seafood sales into this market in Q.II/2012 slid 2 percent from the same quarter last year. According to some sources in the industry, East sea tensions had partly negative impact on trade of agricultural products (including seafood) between the two sides.

In Q.II/2012, Vietnam seafood export to Korea totaled US$127.459 million, up 7.4 percent from the same quarter of 2011 and much lower than 24 percent growth in the previous quarter. Seafood trade in June dropped 5.5 percent. South Korea is beginning to raise technical barriers to limit the great flow of imported seafood from Vietnam into the market. It is also reducing fish imports from other countries.

6. Growing seafood trade with Japan, but weakened competitiveness of Vietnam processors: On the turn of 2012, among the main global fish-consuming markets, Japan is showing stable growth in fish import and has high demand for fish. However, Vietnam seafood exporters to this market have to compete crucially with other suppliers such as India, Thailand and Indonesia. Moreover, Vietnam shrimp products are subject to new technical barriers, especially Ethoxyquin testing on seafood from Vietnam applied since the middle of May 2012 with the MRLs at a very low level of 0.01 ppm.

In Q.II/2012, fisheries sector calculated a rise of 19 percent in shipment to Japan thank to domestic abundant supply and rising consumption demand in Japanese market. In Q.II/2012, export growth went up 36.6 percent to US$283.7 million. The accumulated revenue in the first half of 2012 stood at US$512.3 million, reaching an average rise of 35.5 percent.

7. Lack of capital – Processors hard to get low interest rate bank credit: Lack of capital for producing and processing had been seen through the community of Vietnam seafood exporters since the first quarter of 2012. On the turn to the second quarter, hunger of capital impacted negatively on the national export-driven industry. Seafood processors had no more money to purchase raw material for processing. This pushed raw fish price to a very low level, particularly in shrimp and pangasius cases. In April – June 2012, price of shrimp slumped 40 percent and pangasius dropped 15 percent from April – June 2011. Lack of money for running processing chain, many companies had to reduce production for export, leading to fewer turnovers in this period, especially those in pangasius sector.

8. Pressure of current fees and procedures on seafood companies: While Vietnam seafood business community is finding capital to keep production and export activities, they are still put under pressure of a great range of existing fees and complex procedures and some new rules in the second quarter of 2012 Also in this period, costs of raw material production and seafood processing rose considerably by 15 – 35 percent due to hike price of fuel, electricity, aquatic feed and labour salary. This drove many companies into troubles and these are pushed to reduce production or do outsourcing for other processors.

9. Merge and acquisition trend among Vietnam seafood businesses – fisheries restructuring: To the end of June 2012, Vietnam counts 582 seafood exporters, down 32 percent, equal to 275 units less than the same period of the previous year. Most of those out of business abroad were trading companies which have no farming area and processing facility. Lack of comprehensive planning for seafood manufacturing also led to the decline of Vietnam’s export-driven industry. Therefore, many representatives from seafood enterprises and leaders of fisheries regulation agencies agreed that it must be the right time to restructure seafood-producing community and look towards the sustainable development. In this tough economic context, drop in the number of seafood companies as a result of bankruptcy and company merging might be an essential and positive step to reach fisheries sustainability.

To get more details on Vietnam seafood export, please access to Report on Vietnam seafood export in Q.II/2012

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