HANOI: Vietnam’s tuna exports are expected to increase by 8 per cent this year to $524 million, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Producers and Exporters (VASEP).
VASEP general secretary Truong Dinh Hoe said that, after a three-year decline, tuna exports by 9 per cent last year to $500 million, with frozen tuna loin and canned tuna accounting for 47 per cent and 30 per cent, respectively.
The biggest buyers were the United States, the European Union, Asean countries, Israel, China and Japan, he said. Shipments to the US were worth $200 million, a year-on-year increase of 4.5 per cent, making Vietnam the second-biggest exporter to that market.
While Vietnam was faced with similar import tariffs to other main tuna exporting countries, the country would remain the second largest exporter to the US or even surpass Indonesia to become the largest in a few years, Hoe said.
Exports to the EU, the second biggest buyer, reached $110 million last year, an increase of 11.5 per cent over 2015. Frozen tuna loin was the main item (accounting for 36 per cent) followed by canned tuna (31 per cent) and frozen whole tuna (20 per cent). Italy, Germany and Belgium were the main markets in the EU, making up 57 per cent of the imports.
Italy is among the largest tuna markets in the world, and Vietnamese firms exported mainly frozen yellow-fin tuna to that market and had a 28 per cent market share, Hoe said. Export of the fish is expected to increase further, especially after the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement comes into force and Vietnamese tuna attracts lower tariffs than those of its rivals, he said.
Exports to China increased 69.2 per cent last year, but exports to Japan went down 6.9 per cent. Japan’s tuna imports are falling every year since young people there increasingly prefer land meat, reducing consumption of tuna sashimi and sushi, Hoe said.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, consumption of fresh and frozen tuna in Japan dropped 3 per cent last year. In the long term, its seafood imports will continue to fall. The depreciation of the yen also affected tuna exports to Japan, the industry association said.
Vietnam has only a 0.5 per cent share of the Japanese tuna market, it said. Hoe said that this year Vietnamese tuna exporters would increase exports of frozen tuna loin.
