(vasep.com.vn) According to reports, the total agro-forestry-seafood turnover nationwide in 2011 reached US$25 billion in which seafood turnover hit US$6.1 billion.
According to Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), in 2011, seafood enterprises are facing a lot of difficulties such as shortage of raw materials, particularly raw pangasius and shrimp. As the result, the price of raw materials increased two or threefold higher than that of the previous year. Besides, seafood industry also coped with technical barriers, more and more severe requirements of food hygiene and safety by Japan, low shrimp importing demand of EU affected by ongoing economic crisis in many European countries.
To achieve the seafood export targets of US$6.5 billion in 2012 forecasted by MARD, the industry has to push up domestic raw material source, reduce post-harvest loss from 10 percent to 20 percent. Besides, seafood enterprises not only import squid, octopus, marine shrimp, marine finfish but also should focus on importing farmed fish source from the countries where processing industry are still weak, Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, General Director of VASEP said.