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Seafood sector hits snags
Since early this year, the Vietnamese seafood sector has seen its growth at a five-year record low. By the end of July, seafood exports only reached US$2.16 billion, down by nearly 9.5 percent.
Seafood exports continue to slump
Tran Ngoc Yen from the Information Centre for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agroinfo) said that the global economic downturn has resulted in a sharp fall in seafood exports.
In the first half of this year, turnover fell by 8.6 percent for filleted fish and by 7.6 percent for shrimps and crabs compared to the same period last year. Therefore, earnings during the reviewed period dropped by 8.1 percent compared to the corresponding period last year.
According to Agroinfo, there has been a sharp decline in orders from large markets such as Russia, Italy and the Netherlands, over the last seven months while the US and China’s seafood imports have soared by 16 percent and 79 percent, respectively.
Despite being the country’s top export earner of US$600 million, Tra and basa catfish exports dropped by 3 percent.
In addition, the seafood sector is facing tough competition with tariffs and trade barriers such as anti-tra and basa catfish campaigns in Italy, Spain, the US, Egypt and France. Apart from that, the US continues to impose anti-dumping tax rates on Vietnamese tra and basa catfish.
As of January 1 2009, the EU has also enforced an illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing law on Vietnamese seafoods.
Under the law, businesses, which have certificates for operation in territorial waters and have registered the names of their fishing boats, are allowed to export their products to the EU market.
The re-opening of the Russian market for Vietnamese tra and basa catfish imports in May 2009 helped to increase seafood exports. However, Vietnamese seafood businesses still find it difficult to penetrate the Russian market due to its tariffs.
All for farmers to make a profit
Recently, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has worked with the relevant associations and businesses to cope with trade barriers by establishing a steering committee for tra catfish production and consumption in the Mekong River Delta region. In addition, a bar code has also been set up to improve the value of tra catfish.
According to experts, the best way forward for businesses is to maintain their traditional markets and upgrade their human resources to seize new opportunities after the financial crisis is over. However, the big problem for businesses is how to increase the value of seafood products.
Almost all exports are fresh tra and basa catfish, shrimps, crabs, cuttle-fish, and octopus.
Regarding the issue, Le Minh Man, business manager of the Cargill Seafood Company said that to overcome difficulties, businesses should not rush to increase the volume of exports as it costs them time and money. They should strive to secure traditional markets by fully tapping into their advantages.
Mr Man said that businesses should also pay attention to improving the role of farmers, which is not fair at present. Farmers -the providers for processing factories - might suffer losses but processing businesses might not. According to statistics, processing businesses take 60 percent of the value of seafood products while farmers enjoy just 12-15 percent.
Mr. Yen said that in a recent survey of Agroinfo in An Giang the province’s aquaculture area has shrunk by 40 percent compared to a year ago. In addition, the remaining area cannot produce the maximum amount of products possible. As a result, there is a serious shortage of products for export. This will affect the export turnover for the whole sector in the remaining months of the year.
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