2018: seafood exports will have a breakthrough

By the efforts of enterprises, the seafood exports exceeded $US 8.3 billion. Photo: Thu Hoa.

Beginning with the shipment worth more than half of a billion dollar

On January 14th, a seafood export shipment worth more than half a billion dollars in early 2018 through Cat Lai Port has been exported by the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) in cooperation with Saigon Newport Corporation for for the first time. According to Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, Secretary General of VASEP, the export shipment includes 3 containers worth nearly half a billion dollars. In particular, a container of 20 tons of frozen shrimp, worth more than $US 290,000 exported to Canada; 20 tons of marine fish exported to the US market valued at over $US 216,000 and a container of 22 tons of catfish fillets valued at more than $US 84,000 exported to the EU market. The total value of export aquatic products at the beginning of the year is over $US 590,000, equivalent to nearly VND 13.4 billion.

Attending the ceremony, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong shared that, the businesses in the fisheries industry has never faced so many barriers and difficulties as it did in 2017. Export enterprises fisheries are affected by smear communication, raw material competition, technical barriers of importers, the yellow cards related to the protection of fisheries resources during fishing, exploiting... But they (the companies) have united to find the direction, conquer the market for each specific industry and has achieved a spectacular goal.

About the results of 2017, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that 2017 was a difficult year in the market but the fisheries industry has made great progress to reach the record exports of more than $US 8.3 billion.

This result has contributed significantly to the export performance of the agricultural sector in 2017 with a record of $US 36.37 billion. It can be said that in the last year, the seafood industry has had a strong rise, thereby confirming the potential and position of Vietnam seafood in the world market.

Overcoming the mark of $US 8.5 billion

That the fisheries industry has exceeded an export value of $US 8 billion in 2017 is an important step, marking the dramatic development of the fisheries industry in Vietnam. In 2018, the target of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development assigned to the fisheries industry is $US 8.5 billion or more.

According to Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong, in 2018, there will be many challenges for the fisheries industry. With exploitation, (IUU - Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing) Vietnam is being warned by the EU’s “yellow card” on IUU. Therefore, it is necessary to reorganize the industry from the point of view of fisheries towards sustainable development. This is a very difficult problem, but we must overcome it.

“We are now trying to implement the new Fisheries Law and action programs to tackle the IUU yellow card. In the field of aquaculture, our production capacity is very good, but the control of residues of antibiotics, chemicals, impurities, is a problem that we must focus on and handle” - Mr. Nguyen Xuan Cuong emphasized.

On the challenge of IUU yellow cards, Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong said that there would be great difficulties for the fisheries industry this year in the exploiting area, the difficulty in organizing the fishing industry under sustainable direction. But Vietnam is implementing the Fisheries Law. The PM also directed the whole industry to implement the IUU regulation, the fisheries industry will overcome these challenges. On the market, Vietnam is exploiting the traditional markets of the United States, the EU and the markets that have advantages of free trade agreements, such as Australia, South Korea, Japan. However, the fisheries industry needs to exploit them better and in a sustainable manner, rather than just relying on the existing markets that Vietnam has long been limited to, such as ASEAN countries, China, etc,...

According to the VASEP, in 2018, the seafood exports will continue to be affected by a number of technical barriers, such as the US catfish inspection program, anti-dumping tariffs on shrimp and pangasius to the US and the IUU yeallow card... In addition, in the domestic market, there are still some difficulties such as raw material shortage, antibiotic problems, production costs... that are still in the process of improvement. If these factors are not handled effectively, they would be the risk of suppressing positive efforts (results of implementation of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements; building quality of goods, trade promotion and proving the business environment, etc.).

According to the cycle of supply and demand, plus the plan to increase production and export shrimp towards the goal of $US 10 billion in 2025, the volume of export is expected to increase, the pressure of competition with other exporting countries will also increase and export prices will slightly decrease compared to 2017, the export value expected in 2018 will increase slightly about 4%, reaching from $US 8.5 to 8.6 billion.