Seafood exports in the first 7 months of 2021 reached nearly 5 billion USD

According to Customs statistics, by the end of July 2021, the country’s seafood exports reached nearly 5 billion USD, up 13% over the same period last year. Particularly in July 2021, seafood export turnover still increased by 7.5% to nearly 854 million USD, of which exports to the US and EU markets increased sharply, to CPTPP countries and Korea increased slightly, and exports to China increased slightly. The country continued to fall deeply by 20%. After the first 7 months of the year, exports to the US still maintained the highest growth rate of 36%, to the EU increased by 19%, CPTPP increased by 10%, while exports to China decreased by over 10%.

As of mid-July, the production and export of seafood is still on a good growth momentum. However, from the second half of July, the application of social distancing directives, the production of raw materials and seafood processing slowed down markedly. With the requirement of 3 on-site production and processing in 19 provinces and cities severely affected by the Covid-19 epidemic, only about 30% of businesses can follow this method, with a reduction in capacity of 30-70% depending on the situation DN. However, the shipment in July may still use raw materials and previous inventories, so the statistical results do not reflect the declining trend, but compared to the previous months, the growth rate has been lower significantly.

 Shrimp exports grow steadily

Shrimp exports in July still increased by 13% over the same period to USD 441 million, of which both black tiger shrimp and vannamei shrimp increased (19% and 14% respectively over the same period). However, lobster exports decreased by 45%, mainly due to difficult exports in 2020 because of the Covid epidemic, farmers reduced area, so the output decreased, not enough to meet the demand from China. Although still positive growth, but compared to recent months, the increase in shrimp exports to markets has been much lower.

By the end of July 2021, shrimp exports reached $2.1 billion, up 14% and shrimp accounted for 44% of Vietnam’s total seafood export value. In which, whiteleg shrimp exports accounted for the majority (81%) with 1.7 billion USD, up 23%, black tiger shrimp accounted for 15% with 325 million USD, down 1% over the same period last year. Shrimp exports to the US, Japan and EU are all recovering, in which exports to the US increased the most by 34%, to the EU increased by 25%, to Japan increased by 6%. However, exports to China decreased by nearly 19%, to Korea only increased slightly by 2%. In addition, thanks to preferential tariffs under FTAs, exports to some markets still have high growth rates, such as Australia up 74%, Russia up 87%.

Exports in August were strongly affected because of 3 on-the-spot requirements

After more than 1 month, seafood enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City and 19 southern provinces operating under the conditions of applying Directive 16 under the direction of the Prime Minister, arise many difficulties and inadequacies that greatly affect the safety of epidemic prevention and control as well as the prevention and control of epidemics efforts to maintain production and export.

Accordingly, most provinces and cities have required businesses to maintain operations only when they ensure the conditions of “3 places” or “1 road – 2 locations” to prevent and control the disease from spreading into homes machines, industrial zones. But in fact, so far, only about 30% of seafood enterprises in the southern provinces can ensure the “3 spot” condition and the number of workers that can be mobilized is only 30-60% of the number of employees. The average production capacity has decreased to only 40-50% compared to before. It is estimated that the overall capacity of the whole area will decrease to only 30-40%. Meanwhile, fishery materials mobilized for processing and export only reach about 40-50% compared to external raw materials. Supplies, accessories, packaging, etc.. for seafood processing also shrunk, reducing supply capacity by 50%. While production was reduced, many orders had to be shelved or canceled lost, the costs for businesses to ensure “3 places” have skyrocketed and are creating great pressure.

The decline in production over the past 1 month will certainly lead to a sharp decrease in export turnover in August compared to previous months and a decrease compared to the same period last year. In particular, the pangasius industry suffered the biggest loss because more than half of the pangasius factories were shut down in the past time. Shrimp and tuna exports may decrease less than pangasius. Seafood processing and exporting enterprises are concentrated in Ho Chi Minh City. Ho Chi Minh City and the Eastern provinces should certainly also decrease sharply compared to the previous month and compared to August 2020.

(source : http://vasep.com.vn/)