Vietnam would continue to decrease tuna's export value in the second quarter of this year, partly due to its falling price on the world market, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) forecast.

According to the association, the export value of tuna is expected to see a year-on-year reduction of 5 percent to 123 million USD in the second quarter.

The decline can be partly because of a drop in tuna price on the world market to under 1,000 USD per tonne, while the global output of tuna is expected to increase, the association said.

The other reasons for the decline include the weak Yen and Euro against the US dollar and a lower demand for tuna in Vietnam's major export markets, Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency reported.

In the first four months of this year, Japan, one of the top three tuna export markets of Vietnam, dropped to the fourth place, after the US, the European Union, and the ASEAN market, because the export value of Vietnamese tuna to Japan dropped 38 percent compared with the same period of last year.

However, the tuna exports from Vietnam to the US recorded a year-on-year increase of 3 percent to 58 million USD in the first four months, the association said.

The association expects that the tuna exports to the US will continue to increase in coming months to recover the national tuna export value for this whole year. The US market holds 40 percent of Vietnam's total tuna export volume, the Thoi bao Kinh te Vietnam (Vietnam Economic Times) newspaper reported.

The VASEP also believes that Russia will emerge as one of Vietnam's potential tuna export markets in future, as the free trade agreement signed between Vietnam and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) on May 29 will create favourable conditions for Vietnamese fisheries exports to Russia, including tuna, to jump sharply.

Over the past few years, Russia has been one of the major export markets of Vietnamese fisheries, the association pointed out.

Tran Thanh Hai, Deputy Head of the Export Import Department under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, noted that three sectors - fisheries, garment and footwear - can gain many advantages from the free trade agreement with EEU as it has zero import tariffs.

According to the General Department of Customs, the export value of Vietnamese tuna to Russia had a year-on-year surge of 218.4 percent to 1.65 million USD in the first four months of this year.

Meanwhile, the World Trade Centre's statistics show that Vietnam was the third largest tuna exporter to Russia in the first quarter of this year, after Thailand and China.-VNA