Processing Tra fish for export (Source: VNA)Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam raked in 1.97 billion USD from aquatic exports in the first four months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 6.2 percent.
According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the US, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea, ASEAN and Brazil were Vietnam’s largest seafood consumers.
Brazil remained the largest importer, with import value increasing by over 500 percent in the period.
Import by China, ASEAN and the US in the period also rose, with respective surges of 33 percent, 19 percent and 15 percent.
In the first quarter of this year, shrimp exports hit 619.2 million USD, up 7.9 percent over the same period last year. The increase was attributed to dropping shrimp output from big exporters like Ecuador, India, and Thailand due to bad weather and disease.
The price of Vietnam’s export shrimp (especially black tiger shrimp) is competitive compared to prices from other Asian countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia and India.
Vietnam’s prawn exports to foreign markets recorded good results in the first three months of this year following the tariff cuts from 6.37 percent to 0.91 percent as a result of the ninth Period of Review (POR9) on anti-dumping duty on Vietnam’s frozen shrimp and increasing demand in the US and EU markets.
The demand for prawns in the world market in 2016 is forecast to increase between 3.5-5 percent compared to 2015.
Vietnam aims for 4 billion USD in shrimp exports this year.
The export value of Tra fish in the period reached 365.4 million USD, increasing by 2.4 percent compared to the same period last year. Hong Kong (China) and Brazil were the main import markets of Tra fish.-VNA
