Shrimp exporters from Vietnam achieved EU sales totaling USD 589 million (EUR 548.8 million) last year, representing an annual increase of 7.5 percent and reversing the steep decline seen in the trade in the previous 12 months.
Vietnam’s shrimp exports to the EU achieved a total value of USD 548.6 million (EUR 511.2 million) in 2015, which was almost 20 percent less than in the previous year. Exporters attribute last year’s upturn to improved economic circumstances in the bloc.
The increase in trade has also helped consolidate the EU’s position as Vietnam’s second largest shrimp importer (behind the United States) with a 19 percent share of the Southeast Asian country’s total shrimp exports.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the EU’s three biggest markets for Vietnamese shrimp are the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and Germany. In the first 11 months of last year, Vietnamese shipments to the U.K. and Dutch markets increased by 4.3 percent and 34.7 percent respectively. Germany’s imports, meanwhile, fell 3.2 percent year-on-year.
While final figures have not been published, Vietnam’s shrimp exports for 2016 are expected to total USD 3.1 billion (EUR 2.9 billion) up 3.3 percent compared to 2015.
Meanwhile, Vietnam’s Directorate of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has set a seafood export revenue goal of USD 7.1 billion (EUR 6.6 billion) for 2017, an increase of USD 100 million (EUR 93.2 million) on last year’s total. The agency has targeted a total fishery production output of 6.85 million metric tons (MT) for the whole year, including 3.8 million MT from aquaculture.
Last year, MARD highlighted that the country currently has about 700,000 hectares of brackish water shrimp farming sites, including 95,000 hectares of industrial shrimp farms and more than 600,000 hectares of extensive farms with low productivity. It is therefore encouraging the shrimp sector to raise its output.
