Recovery of Vietnamese seafood exports

Vietnam Customs said that in the first half of 2013, seafood exports reached US$2.89 billion, increasing by only 0.3 percent. Shrimp products made up the largest part in total export revenue with US$1.1 billion. Shrimp also got the strongest growth of 8.6 percent among Vietnam’s exported seafood products.

Whiteleg shrimp exports up 71.5 percent

In the first half of 2013, whiteleg shrimp exports only reported a 32.8 percent drop in value in February and increased by 9 percent, 22.9 percent and 18.5 percent in the consecutive three months of the second quarter. Between April and June, export value for this item reached US$230 million averagely. Shrimp sales accounted for 38 percent of the first half’s seafood exports, up 3 percent over the same period of 2012.

Currently, shrimp import volume into some international key markets has not increased but the prices continued to soar. The higher prices were mainly due to poor supply from Thailand – the world’s largest shrimp producer. Between January and June 2013, Thai shrimp production fell deeply as the producers in this country have been affected by EMS and bad weather conditions.

In the context of the economic downturn, whiteleg shrimp is becoming a good choice for consumers in the global market due to its cheaper price. So far, this species represented 41.3 percent of Vietnam’s total shrimp exports, while black tiger shrimp occupied 50.8 percent and marine shrimp 7.9 percent. Whiteleg shrimp just went down 19.5 percent in February and rose 5.8 – 71.5 percent in the following months.

Slow growth in pangasius exports

Though it has shown signal of growth from 1.8 to 40.7 percent in four out of six months, Vietnam pangasius exports value still decreased by 0.5 percent to a total of US$849.5 million in the first half of 2013.

During the first half of 2013, ASEAN, Mexico and Brazil reported a strong rise in imports of pangasius from Vietnam. ASEAN purchase grew from 8.5 – 82.2 percent; Brazil got two-digit growth, especially imports in May and June up more than 110 percent. Mexico also showed positive signs in imports in most months. The rise in exports to these three countries compensated losses from Vietnam’s two key markets, the U.S and the EU.

Since May 2013, the U.S. has passed the EU to be the largest importer of Vietnam pangasius, though Vietnamese companies are imposed high antidumping duty on fish fillets exported to this market. EU purchase of pangasius continued plummeting from 5.3 – 39 percent compared to the compatible time of 2012, making exporters boost their shipments to the U.S. In June 2013, in fact, exports to the U.S. increased by 12.8 percent.

Between January and June 2013, pangasius products sent to the EU was down 14 percent and accounted for 23 percent in total exports.

Sharp decrease in exports of marine products

Vietnamese companies continued to report a sharp decrease of 10 – 27 percent in exports of marine products in many months between January and June 2013. The drop was registered in many subsectors like marine fish, fish paste and surimi, crab, swimming crab and other crustaceans, cephalopod, and bivalve mollusks.

Through June 2013, earnings from marine fish sales went down of 4.2 percent; cephalopods down 22.8 percent; bivalve mollusks down nearly 2 percent; crab and swimming crab down 21.2 percent. Only tuna products got a slight growth of 2.7 percent. However, tuna exports slid 12.5 percent and 26.9 percent in May and June 2013 due to many challenges set by the U.S. and Japanese markets.

During the recent months, Vietnamese exporters found hard to sell marine fish, particularly tuna products, to Japanese market mainly due to the depreciation of yen and stricter food safety policy implemented by the Japanese government.