Vietnam seafood processors export to new markets

Many seafood enterprises in Vietnam shifted export focus to new markets including Cyprus, Brazil, Canada, the Philippines, Uruguay, Ukraine and Algeria.

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP), this change has been decided when they met a lot of difficulties while exporting seafood to traditional markets such as Japan, the US, and the EU.

One incident was, according to a report, within the first four months this year, South Seafood Limited Company (South Vina) exported over 3,000 tonnes of frozen tra fish with total value of over US$7 million to the major partners in Brazil, the Netherlands, the US and Germany. At this time, in addition to big export markets, South Vina continued to stabilise the export to the Republic of Cyprus, Canada and the Philippines.

In January 2010, Vietnam announced its plans of launching a VND1,300-billion (US$71 million) investment programme to expand aquaculture production over the next decade in the country's southern provinces that form the central area of the fish farming sector.

A key element of the investment programme aims at doubling the value of river catfish (tra catfish) exports to US$3 billion a year which will provide a major boost to the fast growing aquaculture sector that already ships a major portion of its output to overseas markets.