Seafood exports up 46%

	How would US tax reductions affect Vietnam's seafood exports?
	EVFTA is an advantage in helping seafood exports to the EU
	Seafood exports increase slowly, businesses worry about lack of raw materials

Pangasius exports are expected to increase in the near future

According to the latest information from the Directorate of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development - MARD): by the end of June, the country's total seafood production reached 4.16 million tons, up 2.5% over the same period in 2021, reaching 47.7% of the year plan. Seafood export turnover in the first six months of the year was estimated at $6 billion, up 46% over the same period in 2021 and reaching 67% of the year’s target.

Analyzing some of the outstanding issues in aquaculture and fishing since the beginning of the year, Mr. Tran Dinh Luan, Director General of the General Department of Fisheries, that in the fishing sector the price of diesel oil increased by about 45% (compared to December 2021), leading to an increase in the prices of commodities for fishing activities by 10-20%.

This leads to higher shipping costs, but seafood prices only increase by 10-20% for some high-economic-value products.

Fishing vessels operating on the high seas have faced many difficulties. In some localities, especially in the Central region, many fishing boats are not engaged in production activities.

Faced with this situation, the Directorate of Fisheries has proposed to MARD to report and suggest the Government applying solutions and tools to reduce the price of oil, and rescheduling debt for fishing households to reduce production difficulties

In the fight against illegal, undeclared, and unregulated fishing (IUU), the Directorate of Fisheries has advised the MARD to organize an inspection against IUU in Nam Dinh, Thanh Hoa, Quang Ngai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, and Ca Mau. They are also advised to promulgate documents to the provinces to strengthen measures to prevent ships from violating the countries' waters.

So far, the installation of vessels monitoring system (VMS) has reached 92.99% in total.

The VMS has been deployed synchronously from the central to local levels and connected between relevant agencies and functional units.

The Import-Export Department of MIT forecasts that in the future, seafood exports will continue to grow, especially pangasius products.

In the US market, importers increased the import of pangasius when inventories were low after two years of the epidemic.

Besides, the area of catfish farming in the US decreased for three consecutive years and affected supply.

Competitive pangasius prices could solve the face of record-setting inflation and fill the gap in some segments with whitefish products being a shortage from Russia.

Import demand for pangasius is still high in the Chinese market. However, a representative of the Import-Export Department said that shrimp exports will likely face difficulties as record inflation in most major global markets affects shrimp consumption.

The disease situation on shrimp is more complicated every year. Rainy weather causes farmers to harvest shrimp early and limits stocking, affecting the supply of raw shrimp.

Target for export of agricultural products USD$55 billion VCN - Total export turnover of agriculture, forestry and fishery in the first six months of 2022 ...

Soon, Deputy MARD Phung Duc Tien asked the fisheries sector to monitor the weather and the market's demand to advise and direct to achieve the targets and to continue to guide fishers to organize fishing in groups and teams to increase the time to stick to the sea, save the cost of moving.