The association attributed the decrease to shrinkingproduction as the southern localities had to impose social distancing measuresto fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
Specifically, in the first half of September, most of thesouthern localities applied social distancing under the PrimeMinister’s Directive 16, many processing factories suspended operations,leading to a decrease of 31 percent in the nation’s total seafood exportturnover. In the second half of the month, several localities began looseningsocial distancing, which helped restore some production activities. Seafoodexport turnover in the whole month reached over 628 million USD, down 23percent over the same period in 2020.
In the month, seafood exports to the US recovered with aslight increase of 3 percent year-on-year to 159 million USD, while thoseto other markets continued to decline, with China seeing the biggest drop (nearly50 percent), and Japan, Canada, the UK and Australia also experiencingdecreases of between 35 and 45 percent.
During January-September, the export of aquatic products hit6.2 billion USD, up 3 percent year-on-year. Notably, shrimp exports reached2.76 billion USD, up 2.6 percent, the exports of tra fish and tuna rose by 3.2percent and 9 percent to 1 billion USD and 520 million USD, respectively.
VASEP said that the best outlook for seafood exports thisyear is to be equal to that of 2020, or 8.4 billion USD./.