With Vietnam’s pangasius trade plateauing in recent years due to falling overseas demand and prices, there has been increased pressure on the country’s shrimp exports to fill the void left by the farmed whitefish.
As a number of important shrimp producing countries are still overcoming major disease challenges, Vietnamese producers/exporters have been given the opportunity to grow their market share. Indeed, the value of Vietnam’s shrimp exports in the opening two months of this year grew 8.5 percent year-on-year to USD 378.4 million (EUR 334.7 million), with significant increases in trade with both the U.S. and Chinese markets.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the United States maintained its position as Vietnam’s No. 1 shrimp market by importing USD 98.3 million (EUR 86.9 million) worth of shrimp over the two months, a rise of 36.2 percent year-on-year.
For the same period, exports to China increased 36.5 percent to USD 64.8 million (EUR 57.3 million), making it Vietnam’s strongest growth market and second place in value terms. VASEP believes the Chinese government has been encouraging the importation of raw shrimp to offset declining domestic production. A lot of these imports are processed and re-exported.
In terms of species, whiteleg shrimp (Penaeus vannamei) accounted for 56.1 percent of Vietnam’s exports, while black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon) accounted for 35.8 percent and other marine shrimp accounted for 8.1 percent. Vietnam has been putting more focus on its black tiger production in the past year. The Mekong Delta’s production of this variety increased 4 percent to 255,873 metric tons (MT) last year. At the same time, its vannamei output reached 344,600 MT, down 3.7 percent compared with the previous year.
In 2015, Vietnam's shrimp exports accounted for 44 percent of total seafood exports, with sales of almost USD 3 billion (EUR 2.7 billion), down 25.3 percent.
Its three largest markets – the United States, Japan and the EU – accounted for 60 percent of the total shrimp export value.
