In the Middle East market, Saudi Arabia is the second largest importer of Vietnamese tuna in the bloc, after Israel. After a decline in 2023, tuna exports to this market have continuously grown strongly in the past 4 months. In the first 6 months of 2024, tuna exports to Saudi Arabia increased by 82% over the same period, reaching more than 4.7 million USD, but still much lower than the same period in 2022.

Saudi Arabia is the second largest tuna import market in the Middle East. Compared to other markets in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia has higher quality requirements than other markets.

Saudi Arabia imports a lot of canned tuna. The most popular canned tuna products in Saudi Arabia are solid canned tuna, accounting for 72% of the volume, followed by flake tuna at 11.5%, and the rest are value-added ready-to-eat tuna products at 2.2%. Of which, products made from light tuna (skipjack tuna, yellowfin tuna) account for about 90%, and the rest are white tuna (albacore tuna) at 10%. Most of them are products soaked in sunflower oil, packaged in 185 - 200gr. The main canned tuna brands in Saudi Arabia are Goody, Boton, Green Farms, Geisha, California Garde and Rio Mare. Supermarkets are the main distribution channel for tuna products in Saudi Arabia.

However, this year, Vietnam's canned tuna is losing market share in this market. The export value of Vietnam's canned tuna products to Saudi Arabia decreased sharply by 52% compared to the same period. On the contrary, this year, frozen tuna meat/loin products tend to increase.

According to FAO, Saudi Arabia is the world's largest food deficit region and is having to import 70% of its food. Therefore, food security is a serious problem in these countries. This means that the Arab League will continue to depend on imported aquatic and seafood products and gradually reduce exports to focus on serving domestic consumption. Therefore, this will be an opportunity for countries to increase exports.

Source: Vietnamexport