After 3 consecutive months of decline, Vietnam's tuna exports to the UK have increased again. In June 2024 alone, tuna exports to this market increased by 56%, reaching 742 million USD. However, the high growth rate in the past 2 months was still not enough to offset the previous decline. Therefore, the cumulative export turnover to this market in the first 6 months of 2024 reached 3.6 million USD, down 5% over the same period.

Frozen tuna meat/loins code HS03 are still Vietnam's main export products to this market, accounting for 92%. This year, the UK has reduced imports of frozen tuna meat/loins from Vietnam. Meanwhile, imports of other products tend to increase.

Vietnam is currently the second largest supplier of frozen tuna meat/loins code HS03 outside the EU to the UK market, after South Korea. The UK is also reducing imports of this product group.

In the UK market, tuna is sold in many types of products such as: pre-processed, ready-to-eat, sushi, sauced, cake or breaded... Of which, canned and bagged tuna products are consumed the most. However, the consumption of this product group has been on a downward trend since last year. On the contrary, the consumption of tuna products in the form of sushi or breaded tuna tends to increase. Therefore, this is an opportunity for countries to increase exports of processed and canned tuna products.

However, in the canned and pouched tuna market segment, Ecuador, Mauritius, Seychelles and the Philippines are the four main suppliers to the UK market. Meanwhile, Vietnam is only a very small supplier.

Like Vietnam, Ecuador has signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the UK. This is creating favorable conditions for this country to increase exports to the UK. With a powerful fleet, the supply of tuna of pure origin for Ecuador is quite abundant. Therefore, Ecuador has many opportunities to boost exports to this market.

Meanwhile, Vietnam's catch is inherently much lower than that of its neighbor due to the lower fishing capacity of the fleet. In addition, regulations limiting the size of skipjack tuna allowed to be exploited are making the output even lower. Enterprises do not have enough supply of skipjack tuna - the main raw material for the canned tuna processing and export industry - of pure origin for production and export.

Therefore, it is expected that tuna exports to the UK will find it difficult to maintain growth momentum until the end of the year.

Source: VASEP