Vietnam has upped its shipments of pangasius to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in response to a ban put in place by Saudi Arabia in January 2018, according to Vietnam's Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).
In the first half of this year, Vietnam exported pangasius worth USD 27 millon (EUR 23.3 million) to the UAE, up 130.7 percent from the same period in 2017. The year-on-year export value on a monthly basis rose sharply during March-June at between 117 percent and 221 percent, much higher than 28 percent in January and 66.3 percent in February.
The rise in the export value to UAE is expected to continue in the second half, VASEP said.
The shift to UAE came as Saudi Food and Drug Authority (SFDA) in January suspended imports of fish, crustaceans, and other products of aquatic animal origin from Vietnam due to the presence of two diseases in the Southeast Asian nation.
SFDA said the ban, effective 23 January, was based on the World Organization for Animal Health’s "Quarterly Aquatic Animal Disease Report (Asia-Pacific Region) April - June 2017," which shows that white spot disease and acute hepatopancreatic necrosis disease are present in Vietnam.
Vietnam collected USD 10.6 million (EUR 9.1 million) from exports to Saudi Arabia in the first two months of this year. Saudi Arabia was Vietnam’s biggest buyer of pangasius in the Middle East in 2017, importing approximately USD 53.4 million (EUR 46 million) that year.
But shipments practically stopped in March after the ban went into place. The ban forced Vietnamese exporters to increase shipments to Egypt but the export value in this market was not as high as in UAE, according to VASEP.
