Seafood industry swims with the big fish

By diversifying products and enlarging market share, the seafood sector last year earned US$4.27 billion in exports, up from $3.75 billion in 2007 and making Viet Nam the world's eighth largest seafood exporter, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The seafood sector has set a goal of $4 billion in exports in 2009, representing 9.6 per cent growth over the past year.

The results were attributed to upgrades in processing technology allowing the industry to meet global market requirements, said former deputy minister of fisheries Nguyen Thi Hong Minh at a conference in Ha Noi late last week.

Trade promotion efforts had also enabled seafood exporters to find more foreign outlets, with the Vietfish International held annually in HCM City for the past 10 years becoming an annual rendezvous for industry professionals from around the world, Minh said.

Major customers were now the EU, accounting for 27% of export market share, Japan and South Korea, 19% each, and the US, 13%, she said.

And while shrimp remained Viet Nam's key export product through 2003, tra and basa catfish export value had since grown annually, earning a value equal to that of shrimp by the middle of last year.

Raising the awareness of seafood industry personnel about the need to ensure the safety and hygiene of products was also a significant factor in the success of the seafood industry, said Nguyen Tu Cuong, director of the Centre for Technology Transfer and Fisheries Services under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

But Cuong also admitted that Viet Nam's fisheries still had low competitiveness and weak management capacity, despite the much wider application of modern technology in the sector.

The supply (and quality) of raw materials was also laging behind the growing capacity of processors, he said.

The industry also lacked a proper organisation to effectively manage food safety and hygiene, as well as support industries such as feed, chemicals, packaging, ice, fishing ports and markets.

The Viet Nam Association of Aquaculture Export and Processing Enterprises was an important link in building relations between enterprises but a true co-operative community was still ways off.

Bureaucratic oversight, meanwhile, was cumbersome, Minh said, with the seafood production chain under the auspices of at least five different departments relating to quality, veterinary health, processing, aquaculture and breeding, and exploiting and preserving resources.

The industry needed to continue diversifying its products by breeding varieties having good sales potential and raising in cages strains of high economic value.

Businesses needed a stronger production model and needed to be encouraged to invest in advanced technology, management capacity and enhancing professionalism. While fish farming has provided thousands of jobs and stable incomes, the fisheries sector needed to concentrate on developing human resources for sustainability development.

A focus should be put on increasing the supply of quality raw materials as well as such additional trade promotion efforts as establishing trademarks.

The seafood sector has set a goal of $4 billion in exports in 2009, representing 9.6 per cent growth over the past year, the ministry said. (VNS)