Vietnam earned 5.09 million USD from exporting 3,085 tonnes of tra and basa fish to Russia in the first half of November alone, year on year increases of almost 25 fold in volume and more than 23 times the value.

With this recovery and Russia ’s rising demand for imports, the Vietnamese Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP) said that Russia remains a huge potential market for Vietnam ’s tra and basa fish and is likely to re-establish itself as the leading importer of the Vietnamese fish.

However, after the drop in tra and basa fish exports to Russia in the first seven months of 2009, the total volume of fish exports to the nation from the start of this year to the second week of November had fallen by almost 63 percent year on year to just over 39,000 tonnes.

Meanwhile, tra exports to the US and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) remained stable with a two-figure growth. By mid-November, tra exports to the US had amounted to 116 million USD and to other ASEAN countries, 75.6 million USD, seeing increases of 70 percent and 13 percent in value, respectively.

But exports of tra fish to the Ukraine, the Netherlands and Poland continued falling until mid-November with the drops of 2 percent, 29 percent and 45.5 percent, respectively.

So far this year, Vietnam has earned nearly 1.2 billion USD from tra fish exports, a year on year drop of around 10 percent and the yearly figure is estimated to reach nearly 1.3 billion USD.

To sustain tra and basa fish exports, the Prime Minister has approved a scheme to develop production and encourage consumption of the fish in the Mekong Delta through till 2020.

Under the scheme, which needs an estimated investment of 1.34 trillion VND, the total area of fish farms will be increased from 11,000 ha in 2015 to 13,000 ha by 2020, mainly along the banks of the Tien and Hau rivers.

By 2020, the total output of fish is expected to reach 1.5 million tonnes, with exports reaching 600,000 tonnes and domestic consumption accounting for 100,000 tonnes.

It is estimated that the total export revenue will have reached 1.5 billion USD by 2010, 2.2 billion USD by 2015, and 3 billion USD by 2020./.