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| Seafood exports earn 3.6 billion USD in five months. (Photo: baocongthuong.vn) |
In May 2024, the country’s seafood exports are estimated to reach 870 million USD, up over 7% over the same period last year. In particular, exports of tuna and crab continued to surge strongly, while exports of pangasius, squid and octopus increased slightly. Only exports of shrimp products are slightly lower than the same period last year.
This month, tuna export value increased by 36% to over 95 million USD, of which canned tuna products rose by 18%, bagged tuna increased dramatically by more than 3.5 times, frozen loin or filet tuna soared by 25% and frozen whole tuna surged nearly seven times compared to May 2023. Until the end of May 2024, tuna exports reached nearly 397 million USD, up 25% over the same period.
Crab exports in May increased nearly 92% to over 26 million USD, bringing the export value of the commodity in the first five months this year to 101 million USD, up 84%, mainly thanks to crab products rising by more than two times from the same period. The two largest markets, China and Japan, increased imports of Vietnamese crab.
In particular, China is the largest consumer market of Vietnamese live crab, with an import increase of 11 times over the same period in 2023. For the Japanese market, Vietnam mainly exports products of snow crab such as snow crab meat, shelled snow crab, snow crab claws and a small portion of ground crab.
Pangasius exports increased by 10% and exports of octopus, squid and other fish species all increased by 3% in May. In the first five months of the year, pangasius exports brought in nearly 755 million USD, up 3% from the same period last year. Meanwhile, marine fish exports decreased by 3% to 742 million USD, octopus squid reached 236 million USD, down nearly 2% from the same period last year.
In May 2024, shrimp exports alone decreased by 1.5% to reach 326 million USD, but in the first 5 months of the year, export of the commodity still maintained a positive growth rate of 7%, worth 1.3 billion USD.
In spite of no strong breakthroughs, major markets have shown signs of gradual recovery in both demand and import prices. Accordingly, seafood exports to the US, Japan, the EU and the RoK all grew in May with an increase of 5 - 26%, while exports to China decreased by 8% from the same period.
As of the end of May, the US still took the lead among Vietnamese seafood export markets with a growth rate of 13%, worth 635 million USD./.