While many world leading seafood processors are shifting their factories from Europe and China to Vietnam, Vietnamese processors have increased imports of raw materials for processing for export. Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe said that Vietnam has imported 800 million USD of aquatic materials mainly shrimp, tuna, cuttlefish, for processing and re-exporting.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, in this year’s nine-month period, seafood exports brought home more than 4.9 billion USD, surging 4.3 percent year-on-year. It shows that Vietnam plays increasingly vital role in the global seafood supply chain.
The VASEP said that the first nine months of this year showed stable export value growth for seafood products, excluding cuttle-fish and octopus. Many export markets trended up, creating solid conditions for local enterprises to promote seafood exports at this year end.
In particular, the free trade agreements (FTAs) between Vietnam and other countries will help Vietnames seafood products enter easier to international market. The FTA between Vietnam and Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) that came into effect on October 5 is expected to create favourable conditions for Vietnam’s fishing industry to increase seafood exports to EAEU member countries.
Vietnam’s seafood firms have constantly improved their production capacity by investing in modern technologies, thus increasing the proportion of products with high added value to 50 percent of the total production, with nearly 1,000 kinds. The adoption of new technologies has helped Vietnamese firms boost seafood export in both value and volume in recent years with a recorded strong growth.
Vietnamese seafood products have been exported to 150 countries and territories worldwide, with many large consumer markets such as the US, the European Union, Japan, the Republic of Korea and China. Vietnam’s seafood industry is trying to improve its competitiveness to reach its 7 billion USD export goal this year.
Not only processing traditional aquatic products such as shrimp and tra fish, Vietnamese firms have made efforts to produce a number of new products like instant food and pharmaceutical and cosmetic products made of aquatic materials which have met the demand of the market. Many enterprises have invested in processing new ones such Alaska fish and salmon for export to hi-end markets with the goal of exporting about 60,000 tonnes of Alaska fish by 2018.
According to Mr.Truong Dinh Hoe, Vietnam will reduce facilities turning out semi-processed products, while encouraging the application of modern technologies to improve product quality under a strategy to restructure the aquatic sector to 2020.
The master plan on fisheries development of Vietnam to 2020, vision to 2030 aims to increase the export value of fisheries to 11 billion USD with the average growth rate of 7 - 8% per year in the period of 2011 to 2020. The plan also aims to increase the proportion of instant and high added value products to between 60-70 percent, towards meeting demands of various markets.
The US, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea are the four main importers of Vietnamese seafood, making up 53.7 percent of the total export revenue. According to the master plan, the structure of export markets is as follows: EU market accounts for 21% of total export value of fisheries; Japan market makes up about 20% of total fisheries export value; the US market make up about 19% of total fisheries export value; China market and other markets accounts for 40% of total value of fisheries exports.
