Seafood export cannot set a bigger target

According to Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, General Secretary of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), seafood exports at the beginning of this year grew very impressively. Seafood enterprises have exported to about 160 markets, with a turnover of approximately 6 billion USD, up 41% over the same period in 2021. In which, for the first time, seafood exports reached over 1 billion USD/month. and for 3 consecutive months from March to May, export turnover per month is over 1 billion USD. This is unprecedented in the history of seafood export so far.

Normally, with impressive export results in the first 6 months of the year plus strong market demand in the third and fourth quarters (exports in the second half of the year are usually higher than those in the first half of the year), the seafood industry will boldly set the goal of achieving high results for seafood export this year at over 10 billion USD. But VASEP only set a target that exports by the end of the year will reach the highest level of 10 billion USD (shrimp more than 4 billion USD, pangasius over 2 billion USD, seafood 3.5 billion USD).

If compared with the result of seafood export in 2021 of 8.9 billion USD, and the growth of seafood export in the past years, if reaching 10 billion USD by the end of 2022, it will be a good result. impressive.

But compared to the approximate $6 billion achieved in the first half of the year, the $10 billion targets for the whole year are a bit modest. However, this number is considered to be more appropriate to market movements as well as the difficulties and challenges that the seafood industry is facing at this time and in the coming months.

Mr. Hoe said that there are some big challenges that Vietnam's seafood industry is facing. First of all, high inflation is spreading in the markets. Last May, inflation in the US was more than 8%, in Germany more than 10%, and many other markets were also at very high levels.

To combat inflation, markets will have to reduce consumption, making the world's demand for seafood no longer as high as in the first half of the year, thereby significantly affecting Vietnam's seafood exports. On the other hand, markets that have imported a lot of seafood in the past time, in the coming months, will prioritize clearing inventories rather than boosting imports of new products.

Mr. Do Ngoc Tai, Ngoc Tri Food Processing Corporation, said that due to high inflation, US consumers are tending to spend more sparingly and switch to cheaper foods such as chicken. fish… Meanwhile, the inventory of shrimp is still high. These factors cause US shrimp importers to limit their purchases. Therefore, the demand for US shrimp imports will decrease from April to August this year. It is likely that this market will recover slightly until September.

According to Mr. Tai, in the European market, inflation, rising prices, and depreciation of the Euro are also causing consumers to switch to cheaper foods.

In addition to inflation, China's maintenance of the "Zero Covid" policy may at least until the end of this year or early next year, also affecting Vietnam's seafood exports to this market. Sea freight rates remain high and are threatening to rise again in the context of high gasoline prices and the impact of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. These are also two important factors that will reduce the growth rate of Vietnam's seafood exports in the second half of this year.

From May to September, most shrimp enterprises are short of export orders. The reason is that Vietnamese shrimp is facing fierce competition from Ecuador and India, which has a cheaper production cost of raw shrimp than Vietnam. Due to cheaper prices, from March to May, Ecuadorian shrimp industry has received many orders from US and EU importers.