The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) has appealed for help from Vietnamese trade counsellors abroad so that local exporters can expand their markets in 2014.

The aquatic sector earned 6.7 billion USD from exports in 2013, a year-on-year increase of 10.1 percent. Vietnam’s aquatic products have been shipped to 156 countries and territories. However, the top ten markets contributed up to 85 percent of the sector’s total export turnover.

The US topped the list of importers of Vietnam’s aquatic products with turnover of 1.75 billion USD, up 6.7 percent from the same period last year, followed by the European Union (EU) and Japan with turnover both surpassing 1 billion USD.

Aquatic exporters of Vietnam will look to other potential markets in the coming years in order to further boost exports.

China and Hong Kong are among the most promising destinations for Vietnamese exporters. The two markets bought 650 million USD worth of Vietnamese aquatic products in 2013, 55 percent higher than the previous year’s figure.

In expanding their market share in the Chinese market, domestic aquatic exporters need help from the Vietnamese Trade Counsellor in China in order to get information about market and partners deep inside the country, as their export activities at present are limited in unofficial trading with partners in Guangzhou province.

South American nations, especially Brazil, Argentina and Mexico, are other potential markets of the aquatic products of Vietnam, consuming more than 100 million USD worth of these products last year.

Thus, Vietnamese trade counsellors in this region play an important role in helping expanding Vietnam’s market share.

On the other hand, domestic exporters also need help from state agencies and overseas trade missions in the context of increasing anti-dumping lawsuits and anti-subsidy cases in some markets such as the US, according to VASEP Chairman Truong Dinh Hoe.-VNA