November 19, 2012

In the first ten months of this year, Japan spent over US$508.16 million on importing seafood from Vietnam, up 6.5% from the same period last year.

The figure accounted for 27.4% of the country's total shrimp export revenues between January and October, the General Department Customs said.

The US ranked second with an import value of US$333.05 million, down 16.1% while the EU ranked third with imported worth of US$229.39 million, dropping by 25.8% on-year. Particularly, Germany and the UK were the top importers of Vietnamese shrimp with respective values of US$67.15 million and US$43.4 million.

China and South Korea followed with import values of US$207.3 million and US$132.5 million, respectively. Other main importers of Vietnamese shrimp during the period were Australia, Taiwan, Canada, and ASEAN.

Between January and October, Vietnam earned revenues of nearly US$1.86 billion from exporting shrimp products to 89 markets, down 4.9% on-year, the government agency.

Shrimp is one of Vietnam's main export staples. In 2012, the country targets to earn US$2.5 billion from shrimp exports, slightly higher from US$2.39 billion in 2011. However, it is unlikely that the country can fulfil its target since local exporters are facing fierce competition from their counterparts in India and Thailand. Moreover, Vietnamese shrimp growers are also having a number of difficulties, including financial shortage, high production costs and frequent occurrence of shrimp diseases.