MARKET ANALYSIS
Vietnamese cephalopod exports recover in Q3
Vietnamese cephalopod exports in the third quarter reached US$118.9 million, up 4.1% year-on-year. This was higher than the revenues registered in both the first and second quarters.In the nine months through September, cephalopod exports reached $298.3 million, down 4.7% year-on-year, as the two largest markets of Vietnamese cephalopod (South Korea and Japan) reported declines in their imports from Vietnam.
Exports to the EU registered a slight growth in the January-September period, recovering from the decline in the first-half period. This was attributed to the 15% increase during the third quarter.
In January-September, exports of squid tended to inch up while those of octopus tended to slow down. Squid sales made up 55.7% of the total cephalopod export value during this period. The proportion of squid in terms of volume rose to 57.8% in the same period, while octopus accounted for 42.2% from 44.3% in January-June 2016.
While sales of live/fresh/frozen squid (HS 03) remained on the uptrend, sales of other processed squid continued to decline. Smoked/dried squid sales also fell.
Sales of processed octopus (HS 16) were up 9.2%.
Exports to Asean, the 4th largest importer of Vietnamese cephalopod, reached $12.1 million in the third quarter, down 10.9% year-on-year. The figure for the nine-month period January-September hit US$35.4 million, down 13%.
Asean (composed of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) accounted for 11.9% of the total sales.
Cephalopod exports to two main markets in the Asean bloc (Thailand and Malaysia) declined in Quarter 3 and the first nine months. Sales to Thailand in the third quarter reached $9.9 million, down 6.1% and in January-September, $28.2 million, down 13.4%.
Sales to Malaysia in the third quarter touched $1.1 million, down 50.9%, and the figure in January-September was $4.4 million, down 20.7%.
While Vietnam's cephalopod exports to Thailand declined, cephalopod imports into Thailand in fact rose, as demand for cephalopod in that country was high. Vietnam's exports to Thailand, as well as to Malaysia, may have fallen because import price into these two markets didn't attract Vietnamese enterprises.
Thailand ranked first in importing cephalopod in the Asean bloc, followed by the Philippines and Brunei.
Source: VASEP
