Information from the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that in the first 4 months of 2024, seafood exports earned 2.7 billion USD.

Seafood exports in April 2024 reached 770 million USD, up 4% over the same period last year. In particular, a number of products such as tuna, pangasius, crab, and molluscs of all types recorded positive export growth over the same period. Shrimp products are only equivalent to April 2023, while squid, octopus and some other marine fish species are still lower than the same period.

Cumulatively in the first 4 months of 2024, seafood exports earned 2.7 billion USD, up 6% over the same period in 2023.

Specifically, in April 2024 shrimp exports reached 285 million USD, only equivalent to the same period in 2023 but this is still the month with the highest export value since the beginning of this year. Accumulated in the first 4 months of the year, the shrimp industry brought in sales of 971 million USD, 6% higher than the same period in 2023.

According to assessments, shrimp exports to markets are showing signs of recovery because importers' inventories have decreased significantly, requiring blanket goods. However, actual consumer demand has not clearly shown growth potential. The average price of shrimp exports to markets is still low compared to the previous two years.

Ms. Le Hang, VASEP Communications Director, said that pangasius exports in April 2024 increased by 13%, reaching 168 million USD, a positive sign after a continuous decline in February and March. Cumulatively in the first 4 months of the year, pangasius exports reached 579 million USD, up nearly 2% over the same period.

Pangasius orders in the US market tend to be more positive after pangasius businesses participated in the North American Seafood Exhibition in March, followed by the Global Seafood Exhibition in Spain at the end of April.

In April, many seafood products had increased export value.

In addition to the main products of frozen pangasius fillets, Vietnamese businesses tend to increase the introduction of deeply processed pangasius products; value-added products and attracts a lot of attention from importers as well as visitors.

For tuna products in April, exports increased by 28% to over 86 million USD, bringing the total export value in the first 4 months of the year to 301 million USD, up 22% over the same period last year. Compared to other industries, tuna has had more stable growth in the past 4 months (except for February, which decreased by 11% due to the Lunar New Year holiday).

While squid and octopus exports decreased by 14% in April, shellfish exports increased by 14%. Cumulatively in the first 4 months of this year, these two industries brought in sales of 182 million USD, down 4%, and 43 million USD, down 2% compared to the same period in 2023.

According to Ms. Hang, the processing and exporting industry of tuna, squid, octopus and other marine fish all have the same bottleneck: lack of raw materials. Domestic seafood exploitation output is not enough to meet processing needs, so businesses have to import more raw materials from abroad. However, EU market regulations and Vietnam's new regulations related to IUU mining are causing further bottlenecks in raw materials.

Particularly for crab products, up to April, they still maintained an impressive growth of 101%, with the main market being China and the dominant product being live crabs. In addition to live crabs, there are other products such as live lobsters, sea cucumbers... from Vietnam that still have great potential in China because of their favorable geographical location and are not subject to competitive pressure like frozen goods.

According to VASEP, among the top 5 largest seafood exporting countries of Vietnam, only exports to Japan and Korea increased slightly in April; Exports to the EU and US are only at the same level or slightly reduced; In particular, exports to China decreased by over 22%. Typically, the Chinese market has continuously declined since February, after increasing sharply in January to serve Lunar New Year demand.

China is a market with many sources of supply and competitive prices, so Chinese partners seek to buy at low prices. Businesses expect that the problem of inventory and oversupply in important markets will gradually decrease. If the bottleneck of imported seafood raw materials is removed, seafood export activities in the second half of the year will be more favorable.

Source: Rural Economic Newspaper