As Vietnam prepares for the Tet or New Year celebrations, when processing workers return to their villages and factories virtually shut down for two weeks, it’s a good time to take stock of the state of the country’s fast-growing seafood industry.
This year will be the year of the dragon in Vietnam, and the mythical creature sums up how the industry has performed during the past 10 to 20 years; it has absolutely roared ahead, particularly on the export front. From shipping hardly any seafood to the world’s major markets in 2000, Vietnam is now ranked No. 6 on the list of the world’s leading seafood exporters.
Its two main export species both come from aquaculture. Shrimp (black tiger and white shrimp, or vannamei) is the most valuable, with sales of USD 1.95 billion in the first 10 months of 2011. However, in volume terms, pangasius is ahead. It is difficult to obtain an accurate sales figure, but about 800,000 metric tons (live weight) of this freshwater finfish are currently being farmed for processing and export around the world.
However, Vietnam also exports many wild-caught marine species, including tuna, squid, grouper, snapper and oil fish, which are much sought after by foreign buyers.
In addition, as labor in China becomes more expensive and that country looks more toward supplying its burgeoning domestic market, Vietnam is being increasingly regarded as an alternative venue for re-processing imported seafood and then exporting it to markets such as the United States and Europe.
According to Vietnamese sources, there are three factors that will be crucial to the country’s seafood exports continuing to grow in the coming year:
Shrimp
There must be a supervised ban on the use of all antibiotics in the farming of this valuable crustacean. The Vietnamese shrimp industry is fast losing Japan as a major market because of the seemingly constant use of antibiotics in shrimp feed. It is suggested that changing from the current situation where independent “middlemen” control the supply of shrimp for processing to one where the industry itself takes this over would help to tackle the problem.
In fact, the Vietnamese government would be well advised to ban the use of antibiotics in aquaculture completely and make sure that the ban is rigorously enforced. (The World Wildlife Fund-instigated TV programme about the production of pangasius shown in Germany last year is a prime example of the damage to a major market that can be done by NGOs emphasizing the use of such substances.)
Imported seafood
It is felt that the Vietnamese seafood processing industry will not survive in its present state without imports — most factories are now operating at less than 50 percent of their capacity and the situation will worsen with the increasing shortage of raw material. The Vietnamese Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) is lobbying the government hard for fish from outside Vietnam to be allowed into the country duty free for processing. Currently, the tariff can only be reduced when the raw material is due to be exported after re-processing.
Pangasius
Vietnam has to get all sectors of its pangasius industry working together on an organized footing. Production must be geared to sales with a fair and guaranteed return to the farmers so that they have sufficient capital to plan ahead. Efforts to achieve a minimum selling price have failed dismally and there is a worry that standards can slip as exporters undercut each other on price.
Orders from Europe are returning after all the adverse publicity during the past year. But due to the lack of juvenile fish, the bad management of farms and high interest rates for bank loans, Vietnam is not able to fulfill the orders for its major fish resource.
World demand for all seafood is predicted to continue to increase. According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, annual per-capita seafood consumption will grow by 0.8 percent annually until 2015 at least, while the total demand for seafood will increase by 2.1 percent. However, supplies will remain short, predicts the FAO.
If all sectors of the Vietnamese seafood industry can really work together in harmony, then the country will be well placed to capitalize on the situation. Dragons are reported to bring good fortune, so this could be the year when Vietnam starts to realize its full seafood potential.
