Hoe noted that last year, tra fish production and export were adversely affected by COVID-19, especially in the third quarter when export revenue reached only 295 million USD, down 21 percent year on year.
He said that as of November, total export revenue of the product was 1.4 billion USD and the result for the whole year was estimated at 1.54 billion USD.
However, some silver linings of the cloud were seen during the year, with strong growth in the US, one of the major markets of Vietnamese tra fish, at 48 percent year-on-year rise in the first 11 months of 2021 to 324 million USD. Rises of 44-84 percent were also seen in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Russia and Mexico.
The official held that tra fish production in 2022 will be similar to that of 2021 at about 1.5 million tonnes, of which about 1 million tonnes will be exported.
He said he hopes the Chinese market will be stable again in 2022, contributing to increasing exports of tra fish.
The VASEP representative predicted that there will hardly be any exceptional growth in US market, the same as the EU and UK markets.
Meanwhile, continuous growth is predicted for the markets of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Russia and Egypt./.