Down in Vietnam pangasius exports to the U.S. and EU

On March 31, 2014, the U.S. Department of Commerce (DOC) issued the final results of the ninth antidumping duty administrative reviews on certain frozen pangasius fillets imported from Vietnam. The period of review (POR) is August 1, 2011 through July 31, 2012. Accordingly, the DOC insisted on selecting Indonesia to be the primary surrogate country for its calculations of the weighted-average dumping margins for Vietnamese pangasius products, while Indonesia is not economically comparable to Vietnam due to higher costs in Indonesia’s fish production (seed, feed, by-products..) than that of Vietnam.

On May 9, 2014, the DOC informed some changes in its final results of POR9 due to some errors in calculations. Accordingly, the anti-dumping tax imposed to Vinh Hoan Corporation – one of the two mandatory respondents – reduced from US$0.03 per kilogram to zero. Other separate rate respondents have to pay US$1.20 per kilogram instead of the rate of US$0.42 per kilogram set in the final decision published in March 31, 2014. The anti-dumping tax on pangasius products of Hung Vuong Corporation (another mandatory respondent) is still kept at US$1.20 per kilogram. Vietnam-wide rate is US$2.11 per kilogram.

Due to such high antidumping duty, Vietnam pangasius sales to the U.S. in April 2014 reported a sharp decline of 52 percent and 59.2 percent in May 2014. However, average export price to the market remained stable. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), through April 2014, Vietnam sold 35,966 MT of pangasius to the U.S. with the average export price of US$2.96 per kilogram. The price was equivalent to that of the same period of last year.

Through May 2014, European imports of Vietnamese pangasius had the worth of US$141 million, representing the year-on-year decline of 11 percent. Despite the decline, EU is still the leading importer of Vietnam pangasius.

In May 2014, EU purchased US$27.6 million of pangasius from Vietnam, down 16 percent year on year. Since the early 2014, pangasius exports to EU have been going down in which exports in March showed the sharpest decrease of 19.7 percent and the slight decline was reported in exports in April.

According to latest report of EUFOMA, fish stick consumption in EU saw a slight rise partly thanks to oversupply of Alaska pollock in the market. Fresh cod exports from Norway to EU hit 20,496 MT, up 88 percent against the same period of 2013 (10,903 MT). The average export price rose to NOK18.55 per kilogram from NOK17.73 per kilogram of a year ago. Norway’s frozen cod exports to the market generated 10,614 MT, up 68 percent from a year ago (6,301 MT) with export price of NOK15.44 per kilogram from NOK14.66 per kilogram of a year ago. Norway’s frozen and fresh cod exports to EU totaled 31,110 MT, up 80 percent year on year.

The European Committee (EC) has launched a campaign to call European people for consuming sustainable fish products. The campaign aims to prevent overfishing and ensure the sustainability of fish resources in the future.

According to Vietnam Customs, through May 2014, exported pangasius brought back to the country US$682 million, down 3.8 percent year on year. Pangasius exports to 8 Vietnam’s leading importing markets (EU, the U.S., ASEAN, Brazil, Mexico, China and Hong Kong, Colombia, Saudi Arabia reported the decline while exports to the rest marked positive growth. Exports to 2 main markets (EU and the U.S.), making up 39.3 percent of total pangasius exports, tended to fall down in the past months. Exports to these two markets are likely to recover in the late 2014.