The first half of 2009 has witnessed a major fall in the exports of all the main seafood products in comparison with the same period 2008. It is told that until mid April, shrimp export dropped 5.2 percent in term of volume and 8.3 percent in term of value, exports of pangasius went down by 1.2 percent in volume and 2.3 percent in value, exports of squid and octopus was also plunged by 7.8 percent in volume and 9 percent in value. As a result the export keep falling and the later month was lower than previous month. In April 2009 for instant, seafood export of the whole country reached USD 208.9 million, then in May this figure is less than USD 300 million.
According to official record the sum of seafood exports in the first 4 months reached USD 1.056 billion, down 7.3 percent compared to the same period last year, total export value in the first 5 months (USD 1.3 billion) also went down 10 percent against the same period last year.
Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of VASEP considered that the fall of seafood exports in Vietnam will be stronger in June. He added that the second quarter is the most difficult time when demand in almost markets decreased strongly. Beside the impact of global economic crisis, a lot of importers are watching the movements of market in export countries so that the market is very quite.
Deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry, Luong Le Phuong informed that the consumption of most markets become weak, the fact that banks in import countries limited to give loan to importers to stock seafood which caused importers can not afford to buy products and stock for selling as usual.
Such low trend has put the seafood export of Vietnam under jeopardy. Efforts are going on to revive the export of Vietnamese seafood products. During the Brussel Seafood Show Russian side had organised a special seminar about imports of Vietnam’s seafood to Russia, this action had remarkable impact on the advertisement of Vietnam’s seafood in the whole EU region. Besides, Vietnamese government also working hard to clear a way the worry of consumers about pangasius product’s quality in some countries such as: Egypt, Spain, UAE and Australia in near future also created good conditions for Vietnam’s seafood to speed up.
