October 11, 2012

 

Vietnam unlikely to meet seafood exports target for 2012

 

 

Due to falling global demand and weak financial capacity at local seafood processors and exporters, Vietnam may fail to reach this year's seafood exports' target of earning US$6.5 billion.

 

Due to the economic recession, consumers in traditional import markets, especially the EU, have cut their spending, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) Truong Dinh Hoe was quoted by the newspapers as saying.

 

Importers are also dealing with obstacles in importing seafood products from Vietnam. In previous years, importers could buy Vietnamese seafood and pay later. However, they now have to pay immediately as their Vietnamese partners are also having financial difficulty, Hoe noted.

 

Vietnam's seafood exporters also encounter fierce competition from India and Thailand, he said.

 

In addition, some Vietnamese seafood products are facing technical barriers from importing countries. Due to Japan's strict regulation on ethoxyquin residues in shrimp, Vietnam's shipments to its biggest shrimp market have fallen sharply, Hoe noted.

 

Regarding the ethoxyquin antibiotic issue, VASEP has urged the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade to work with Japanese authorities to raise the permitted level of the antibiotic in Vietnamese shrimp product. It has also requested aquatic feed producers and shrimp farmers to use less ethoxyquin while and change the cultivation methods, Hoe informed.

 

Increasing transport fees have also negatively affected the country's seafood exports, he added.

 

VASEP Vice Chairman Duong Ngoc Minh also blamed banks' mechanism in setting interest rate and credit limit for hindering the cash flows of enterprises, forcing both farmers and enterprises to sell their products at any prices in order to pay off debts.

 

Hoe urged farmers and enterprises to tighten control of pangasius export in order to maintain product quality. According to the VASEP, 65 enterprises exporting pangasius to the EU are capable of providing 600,000 tonnes of pangasius to the global market annually.

 

Earlier last month, however, the e-newspaper of the Ministry of Industry and Trade reported that seafood exports in the remaining months of 2012 will bounce back thanks to support from the government, especially a VND9 trillion (US$431 million) soft loan package to assist pangasius farmers. It is unclear whether farmers have actually received the money yet.

 

Seafood is one of Vietnam's export staples. In the first nine months of this year, the country earned US$4.5 billion from seafood export, up 3.5% on-year.