While there has been a modest increase in the price of Vietnamese pangasius this year, with the average price of raw material from the Mekong Delta reaching VND 21,500 (USD 0.96, EUR 0.86) per kg this month, up VND 3,000 (USD 0.13, EUR 0.12) year-on-year, the pressure on exports is likely to intensify throughout 2016.
Anti-dumping tariffs, the United States’ new inspection program and heightened competition from other whitefish species will make trade more difficult for Vietnam’s pangasius exporters this year and are likely to result in a further drop in overseas earnings. Officials in the Southeast Asian country have said they anticipate the value of its pangasius exports will fall 5 percent this year to USD 1.5 billion (EUR 1.4 billion), continuing the declining trend seen in recent years.
In 2015, Vietnamese exporters earned a total of USD 1.6 billion (EUR 1.5 billion) from pangasius, which represented a 10 percent fall compared with the previous year. This was brought about by trade declines in six of the product’s top eight export markets, including value reductions of 5.6 percent, 14.3 percent and 4.3 percent to the U.S., EU and ASEAN markets, respectively. Although there were some positives during this period – most prominently, a 42 percent export value increase to mainland China and Hong Kong and a 2.4 rise in exports to Saudi Arabia, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has conceded that in many large markets, Vietnamese pangasius was challenged by lower demand, low prices and increasingly strict standards on quality, food hygiene and safety.
