Illustrative image (Source: VNA)
Since May, the United Kingdom (UK) has become the leading market for Vietnamese shrimp exports in the European Union with impressive growth, although exports to other markets have slumped.
Statistics of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep), said the UK was the only market in the bloc where Vietnam's shrimp exports posted a positive growth rate of 24.4 percent in the first eight months of this year. This was compared to the drop of 20.7 percent and 29.7 percent of Germany and the Netherlands, respectively.
The impressive growth of shrimp exports to the UK was attributed to the market's rising demand of warm-water shrimp, according to Vasep.
Vasep said the UK surpassed Germany to become Vietnam's largest shrimp export market since May with a turnover of 72.4 million USD, accounting for 4 percent of the country's total shrimp exports in the eight month period.
Vasep cited statistics of the International Trade Centre (ITC) showing that Vietnam was the third largest shrimp exporter to the UK in the first seven months of this year, providing 11 percent of the UK's shrimp imports, after Canada and India. However, out of the ten largest shrimp exporters to the UK, Vietnam posted the highest growth rate of 48.4 percent, followed by Canada with 47.4 percent.
From the beginning of this year, Vietnam prevailed in shrimp exports to the UK over other rivals in Southeast Asia region such as India, Thailand and Indonesia whose shrimp exports to the UK dropped 20 percent, 38 percent and 7 percent, respectively in the seven-month period due to higher duties.
"This provides great opportunities for Vietnam's shrimp exporters to expand the market share in the UK amid its rising demand for warm-water shrimp," Vasep said, forecasting that shrimp exports to the UK would continue to rise during the remaining months of the years.
However, the increase would not be huge due to the on-going impacts of the Europe's economic downturn, Vasep added.
Vietnam's shrimp exports were on a downward trend from the beginning of this year. In July, Vasep forecast that Vietnam's total shrimp export this year could drop by nearly 18 percent against the previous year to 3.2 billion USD.-VNA
