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Seafood firms lure local market
Local fisheries businesses have been advised by many experts to pay more attention to the potentially lucrative domestic market, to ensure stable, sustainable development.
In recent years, Vietnamese export enterprises involved in many industries have refocused their sights on the local market to escape losses brought about by the global economic crisis.
Many of them have found success in the domestic market of 80 million people.
Seafood exporters, however, had also faced as many difficulties as other industries but have still ignored the local market, experts said.
Dr. Nguyen Thanh Tung, Deputy Director of Viet Nam's Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning (VIFEP), said domestic seafood processing plants were operating at 50 per cent of their capacity.
Tung said fluctuations on the overseas markets in recent years led to exports falling sharply, in addition to unplanned construction of processing plants and a shortage of raw materials.
Tung said that most seafood processing companies have for years ignored the local market, which consumes thousands of tonnes of seafood a year.
Viet Nam has more than 300 seafood enterprises but only a few of them, including An Giang Export-Import Joint Stock Company (Agifish) and Vinh Hoan Joint Stock Company, sell their products domestically.
According to the fisheries industry, in 2009 the price of all fishery products on the overseas market dropped.
Consequently, the industry's export turnover in 2009 was down by 5.7 per cent as compared with 2008's figure. Meanwhile, seafood exports in 2009 declined just 1.6 per cent.
The situation was quite different in the domestic market. The domestic price of seafood last year increased 8.39 per cent year-on-year.
Domestic demand is expected to increase strongly in coming years, according to Tung.
The institute predicted that Vietnamese people's per-capita seafood consumption would be about 22 kilos per year between now and 2020, 2.9 kilos higher than the world's level.
With such seafood use, the Vietnamese market will need 1.95 million tonnes of seafood in 2010 and 2.61 million tonnes in 2020. Meanwhile, the country's total fishery output is estimated to be at 6.5 and 7 million in 2020.
Dr. Do Van Xe, Deputy Director of the Can Tho University, said Vietnamese seafood enterprises would be able to reduce their reliance on export markets if they focused on the domestic market and developed effective measures to fully tap its potential.
To attain shares in the market, enterprises should firstly conduct studies about domestic consumers'tastes, Xe said.
According to Can Tho University, which conducted a survey on catfish consumption, in the Mekong Delta, 96.4 per cent of those surveyed said their first concern was the selling price; 91.4 per cent, convenience; and 85.7 per cent, good taste.
The survey said that convenience and product quality were the top two concerns of people in HCM City.
Delta residents preferred to buy seafood at markets close to their houses while city consumers wanted to buy the products in supermarkets, Xe said.
Packaging designs were another factor in purchases, particularly by high-income earners.
Based on the results of surveys, Xe suggested seafood enterprises create distinct categories of seafood products to ensure that they address the tastes of local consumers.
Establishing relations with farmers and supermarkets is also necessary to ensure stable supplies of raw materials for processing plants and a stable selling channel.
Xe predicted that profits from the domestic market would not be lower than those of exports.
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