Binh Thuan province plans to develop new products and increase seafood exports

With a coastline of 192 km, Binh Thuan is one of the key fishing grounds of the country. Aquatic resources are plentiful of various  species, of which there are over 500 species of fish, 60 among these are of high economic value; famous specialties such as squid, scallop, cockles, shrimp and bivalve mollusks ... Affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, most seafood exporting enterprises had difficulty in maintaining and expanding the market. Many orders and international trade fairs were canceled, affecting trade opportunities of businesses. However, the province’s output and export turnover of seafood in 2020 still increased compared to 2019, the export products that increased strongly are: frozen seafood, fish sauce ….

The Provincial Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Quality Assurance Department informed that the survey results collected information from enterprises about the output and export turnover in 2020 showed impressive prosperity. For example, Hai Nam Co., Ltd increased the value of output as well as export turnover to more than 36 million USD, up by 9.6% over the previous year. The main export markets such as the EU, the Middle East, Asia, the US and Australia mainly imported frozen fish, in addition to many other items such as squid, shrimp, crab, and specialties ... 3 enterprises are Eastern Sea Fishery Joint Stock Company, Tan Quy Seafoods Co., Ltd. exported new products that increased in volume and turnover such as frozen anchovies, octopus. frozen, frozen salmon. And Hai Trieu Co., Ltd. expanded new export markets to Spain, Malaysia, the Netherlands …

Meanwhile, some businesses also imported raw materials for processing, so even though they were participating for the first time, they brought export turnover up more than 5 million USD compared to 2019. Moreover, a famous product which is fish sauce also achieved export growth of 3.9% compared to 2019, reaching an export turnover of nearly $2 million. Up to now, there are 5 enterprises exporting fish sauce to markets in Korea, America, Japan, EU, Philippines.

Currently, the province has about 230 establishments purchasing, preliminarily processing and processing aquatic products. Many seafood products for domestic consumption have high added value and are able to compete in the market such as: seafood hotpot, instant sesame fish, squid with tamarind, instant dried milk crab, Instant-rolled grilled goby ... Especially, fish sauce products bearing geographical indications in Phan Thiet are interested and selected by many domestic consumers and already have a number of export products. Frozen and dried seafood products have been exported to all continents, traditional seafood export markets such as Japan, Korea, Canada, and Europe have been maintained and stable, and at the same time search, expand the market. Seafood export turnover in 2019 reached 136.1 million USD, accounting for 29.44% of the province's export turnover, in 2020 the seafood export turnover reached 159 million USD, up by 16.77%.

Particularly, in the first three months of 2021, with the consumption demand of markets, especially Asia during the Lunar New Year holiday increasing, the export turnover of the seafood group continued to maintain the growth momentum of US$32.59 million, up by 5.09% over the same period. Having that result, it is necessary to acknowledge the great efforts of the exporting enterprises in dynamically overcoming difficulties and trying to maintain well the traditional export markets to continue increasing export turnover.