Vietnam is looking to export frozen raw shrimps to Australia as the country has a great demand of this kind of product, said Vu Van Tam, deputy minister of agriculture and rural development.
Tam told the Vietnam News Agency that the opportunity was discussed during a recent meeting with officials from the Australian Department of Agriculture and Water Resources and that the Australian officials showed interest in importing Vietnamese frozen raw shrimp.
Vietnam has never shipped frozen raw shrimp to Australia, but it has been the largest supplier of processed shrimp products to Australia for the past five years. However, its export turnover from these products decreased by 25.6 percent last year, and by 16 percent in the first seven months of this year.
In the fourth-quarter of 2016, a delegation of Australian experts will make a fact-finding tour to Vietnam to inspect whether Vietnam meets requirements in production in order to export raw shrimp to their country or not.
Tam said he believes that Vietnam can meet all of Australia’s requirements because of his country’s recent investment in shrimp farming technologies, and the attention it has given to controlling diseases and improving the quality of young shrimp.
According to the Vietnamese Trade Office in Australia, Australia demand for seafood saw its imports increase from USD 868 million (EUR 773.3 million) in 2011 to USD 1.6 billion (EUR 1.4 billion) in 2015.
While Vietnam is Australia’s fourth biggest seafood provider, it has just an 11.2 percent market share.
