How to export seafood to reach 10 billion USD this year?

Not the target of about 9 billion USD as set out from the beginning of the year, to the present time, the business community and the whole seafood industry is striving to reach export turnover of 10 billion USD this year.

Expected, in the 10 billion USD seafood exports this year, shrimps to account for 4.8 billion USD. Picture: Nguyen Thanh.

Promote export to China

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP): Currently, the business community and the whole seafood industry are striving to reach export turnover of 10 billion USD in 2018. In which, shrimp tries to reach the target 4.8 billion USD, up 26%; Pangasius 2 billion USD, up 10% and seafood products 3.3 billion USD, up 22%.

This year, VASEP has identified a number of factors that may have negative impacts on seafood exports such as the US catfish inspection program; anti-dumping duties on shrimp and pangasius to the US and the yellow card of the European Commission... Meanwhile, some internal problems such as lack of raw materials for export processing, antibiotic problem, cost production... are still in the process of improvement.

According to Mr. Truong Dinh Hoe, Vice President and Secretary General of VASEP: These factors, if not addressed effectively, will have the risk of suppressing positive efforts such as the implementation of bilateral and multilateral free trade agreements (FTA); build quality of goods, promote trade, value added products, improve business environment...

To promote seafood export in the coming time, Mr. Hoe said that one of the solutions is to focus on promoting export to the Chinese market, controlling the petty trade, especially with pangasius.

While the demand for high quality pangasius and value added products tends to recover in big markets such as EU and USA, the situation of raw material shortage in the country is a problem for the pangasius industry, especially when Chinese traders try to buy pangasius, regardless of quality, processing and weight increase... to cross the border.

The failure to strictly manage the quality of Pangasius export to China is becoming rampant and will damage the prestige of Vietnam pangasius in other export markets while Vietnam is trying to build an image of pangasius. "More importantly, China is no longer a low-end market but a growing market sensitive to food safety and hygiene issues, so Chinese consumers are looking for imported products the same as those that are accepted in the European market, America, including Vietnam pangasius products", Mr. Hoe said.

Pangasius export is expected to stabilize and achieve an export turnover of more than 1.8 billion USD, as well as create a springboard for further development in the coming years, avoiding consequences such as market dependency and unfair competition. According to Mr. Hoe, there is a need for close and stable management solutions in pangasius production and export.

VASEP recommends the Government to consider and direct the implementation of international quality standards for seafood exports to China by road through the issuance and mandatory inspection of quality certificates of hygiene and safety food before export. At the same time, the program of inspecting the production conditions of seafood processing and preliminary processing establishments for the Chinese market is now in order to ensure the quality of export seafood.

Key market development

In addition to the problem of exporting to the Chinese market, VASEP also suggested that in the coming time, the Ministry of Industry and Trade would coordinate with MARD and VASEP to set orientations for key markets such as EU, US, Japan, and potential markets such as South Korea, Australia, Middle East... to solve obstacles to promote export.

In particular, Mr. Hoe emphasized: With trade promotion, market promotion in the direction of chain linkage, PPP, the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Ministry of Industry and Trade need to provide more budget to participate in key trade promotion programs; through the form of PPPs, develop trade promotion programs combining to raise awareness so that many components of the value chain can participate in the promotion of quality and safety in Vietnam by regular and effective means.

"2018 is the time when most of the new FTAs come into effect, such as the Vietnam-EU FTA, are likely to be effective from June 2018; The Partnership for Comprehensive Poverty and Transnational Partnership (CPTPP) was signed in March 2018 and will most likely be ratified by members and come into effect in 2018. Enterprises through the awareness programs on tax incentives come with rules of origin to help businesses maximize the incentives from the FTAs", said Mr. Hoe.

Around the story of seafood export, aiming for 10 billion USD target this year, representatives of some exporters expressed their view that the effectiveness of traceability is an increasingly important issue in exporting aquatic products. Therefore, the Government also needs to prioritize the development of a national database on marine fishery exploitation and certification, national database on agriculture, forestry and fishery products and certification of marine products to be used for traceability.