Tuna exports increased by more than 36%. Photo: T.H

According to Ms. Le Hang, Communications Director of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), in May 2024, the country's seafood exports are estimated to reach US $ 870 million, an increase of over 7% over the same period last year. period last year.

Notably, exports of tuna and crab continued to surge strongly, while exports of pangasius, squid, and octopus increased slightly. Shrimp products alone are slightly lower than the same period last year. Cumulatively in the first five months of the year, seafood exports reached US $ 3.6 billion, up 6.5% over the same period in 2023.

The highest growth in seafood products was crab exports in May, which increased by nearly 92% to over US $ 26 million. Cumulatively in the first five months of the year, crab exports reached US $ 101 million, an increase of 84%, mainly thanks to crab products increasing more than two times over the same period. The two largest markets, China and Japan, both increased imports of Vietnamese crab.

In particular, China is Vietnam's largest consumer market for live crab, with an import increase of 11 times over the same period in 2023. For the Japanese market, Vietnam exports mainly products of snow crab: snow crab meat, shelled snow crab, snow crab claws and a small portion of ground crab...

In May 2024, tuna exports increased by 36% to over US $ 95 million, of which canned tuna products increased by 18%, bagged tuna increased dramatically by more than 3.5 times, loin tuna/ Frozen fillets increased by 25% and frozen whole tuna increased more than seven times compared to May 2023. Cumulatively until the end of May 2024, tuna exports will reach nearly US $ 397 million, up 25% over the same period in 2023.

Pangasius exports increased by 10% and exports of octopus, squid and other fish species all increased slightly by 3% in May. Cumulatively in the first five months of the year, pangasius exports brought in nearly US $755 million, a slight increase of 3% compared with the same period last year. Meanwhile, marine fish exports decreased by 3% to US $742 million, octopus squid reached US $236 million, down nearly 2% over the same period last year.

In May 2024, shrimp exports alone decreased by 1.5% to reach US $326 million, but the cumulative first months of the year still maintained a positive growth rate of 7% reaching US $ 1.3 billion.

Sharing with reporters about shrimp exports, Mr. Pham Hoang Viet, General Director of Sao Ta Food Joint Stock Company (FMC), said that in the first five months of 2024, FMC export turnover increased by more than 15% compared to over the same period, showing that orders have increased but not much.

According to Mr. Viet, currently the Japanese yen has depreciated to a 34-year low. As the largest shrimp exporter to Japan, to minimize the impact of damage on the business, FMC coordinates with customers large, share difficulties and make efforts to increase consumption volume to maintain profits; At the same time, always collect information and process it as quickly as possible, exchange customers with market developments to focus on promoting consumption of products with stable profit margins, research new products to attract consumers to save money every aspect of operations to reduce costs.

According to Ms. Le Hang, although there has not been a strong breakthrough, in general major markets have shown signs of gradual recovery in both demand and import prices. Accordingly, seafood exports to the US, Japan, EU, and Korea all grew positively in May with an increase of 5-26%;

Exports to China alone decreased by 8% over the same period. As of the end of May, the US was leading with a growth rate of 13% reaching US $635 million in seafood import value from Vietnam. Exports to Japan, China, Korea and the EU will only grow modestly by 3-4% over the same period in 2023.

With the above reality, VASEP forecasts that Vietnam's seafood exports will gradually recover in 2024 and become more positive in the second half of the year. With adaptation and adjustment to the market context, it is predicted that seafood businesses will help the industry's export sales recover to 9.5 billion USD - 10 billion USD in 2024. In particular, the shrimp industry is Towards the target of 4 billion USD, pangasius will reach about US $1.9 billion, the remaining seafood products are expected to earn about US $3.6 - 3.8 billion.