Processing Tra fish for export (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Shipments of Vietnamese fishery products to the EU in August,the first month the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement took effect, increased byaround 10 percent over July, demonstrating the positive effect of the deal.
TheEU is the third largest market for Vietnam’s fishery products, after the US andJapan, with a market share of 17-18 percent.
Underthe EVFTA, among about 220 tax lines of fishery products with rates rangingfrom 0 to 22 percent, most tax lines in the high range of 6-22 percent havebeen reduced to 0 percent immediately after the agreement took effect. Theremaining tax lines will be phased out to zero after 3-7 years.
Shrimpis a major export that has benefited from the new tariff scheme. Shrimp exportsto the EU in August rose by 20 percent from the previous month, and areexpected to continue to increase towards the year-end.
Tunaalso has good prospects in the EU market. In the first half of August alone,the value of tuna shipments to the EU picked up 11 percent month on month tonearly 6.3 million USD.
Trafish exporters are pinning hope on the EVFTA, because under the deal, tariffson many tra fish products have been reduced to 0. However, export of thoseproducts has not recovered so far due to deep reduction in the past eightmonths.
Atthe same time, technical requirements, quality standards and origin rules underthe EVFTA pose new challenges to the Vietnamese fishery sector.
DeputyMinister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said in anticipationof the free trade deal, Vietnamese fishery enterprises have made necessarypreparations to meet the requirements of the EVFTA.
Headded that Vietnam is also mobilizing the entire political system to addressthe problem of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in order tohave the EU’s “yellow card” removed./.
VNA
