Seafood exports in September down, recovery slow

Vietnam’s seafood exports continued falling 23% in September, following a significant decline of 36% in August, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

Processing tra fish in Dong Thap (Photo: VNA) N
Processing tra fish in Dong Thap (Photo: VNA) N

The association attributed the decrease to shrinking production as the southern localities had to impose social distancing measures to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

Specifically, in the first half of September, most of the southern localities applied social distancing under the Prime Minister’s Directive 16, many processing factories suspended operations, leading to a decrease of 31% in the nation’s total seafood export turnover. In the second half of the month, several localities began loosening social distancing, which helped restore some production activities. Seafood export turnover in the whole month reached over US$628 million, down 23% over the same period in 2020.

In the month, seafood exports to the US recovered with a slight increase of 3% year-on-year to US$159 million, while those to other markets continued to decline, with China seeing the biggest drop (nearly 50%), and Japan, Canada, the UK and Australia also experiencing decreases of between 35% and 45%.

During January-September, the export of aquatic products hit US$6.2 billion, up 3% year-on-year. Notably, shrimp exports reached US$2.76 billion, up 2.6%, the exports of tra fish and tuna rose by 3.2% and 9% to US$1 billion and US$520 million, respectively.

VASEP said that the best outlook for seafood exports this year is to be equal to that of 2020, or US$8.4 billion.