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$2bil worth of seafood material imports proposed
The Vietnam Association of Seafood Producers and Exporters (VASEP) has sent a dispatch to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, suggesting that Vietnam import $2bil worth of seafood materials.
VASEP said that in order to obtain the seafood export turnover of $7.5-8bil by 2020 as planned, Vietnam needs to import $2bil worth of seafood materials.
According to Nguyen Hoai Nam, Deputy Secretary General of VASEP, under the approved strategy on seafood industry development, the seafood output to be exploited will not increase from the current level (2.1mil tonnes a year), especially as aquatic resources are exhausted, while offshore fishing boats are bringing in limited material due to increased fuel prices.
The farmed shrimp output is hovering around 350,000 tonnes a year and analysts say that the figure may not increase in the coming years. Tra fish output has been increasing sharply, exceeding the 1mil tonne threshold in 2007. However, experts have warned that the increases will slow down due to the market and environmental factors and management problems.
VASEP said that if Vietnam relies on domestic sources of materials, it will not be able to gain the export turnover of more than $4bil every year.
While the output of seafood materials is not increasing, more and more seafood processing workshops are being established. In other words, the system of seafood processing workshops is developing more rapidly than the growth rate of seafood output. Currently operational workshops have the product freezing capacity of 1.5-1.7mil tonnes of product every year, or 4.5-5.1mil tonnes of seafood material.
It is estimated that only 3.2mil tonnes of seafood material can be supplied. That explains why processing workshops always lack materials. Currently, freezing workshops are running at less than 50% of designed capacity, thus causing a big waste in investment.
VNN
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