Seafood exporters drop by almost half

Seafood exporters drop by almost half

There were only 473 companies involved in seafood exports during the first five months of this year, down significantly from 800 companies in the same period last year, according to the Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).

However, the falling number of exporters has not influenced the country's total export value, as those who departed had low turnovers.

The country's five month seafood exports still experienced a 9.8 per cent year-on-year increase, reaching US$2.3 billion, VASEP general secretary Truong Dinh Hoe has said, attributing this encouraging performance to increasing export turnover of large exporters.

Despite positive increase in terms of value, seafood exporters were now facing with numerous difficulties for their business, including shortage of raw materials for processing and insufficient capital for production and increasing input cost, VASEP said. Slumping demand for Vietnamese seafood in the EU, the country's largest seafood importer due to eurozone debt crisis were also problematic, it said, adding that Viet Nam's seafood exports to the market slipped by 7.9 per cent year-on-year with shrimp and tra fish witnessing the strongest decreases.

In order to better facilitate seafood exporters in the coming months, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has recently proposed two stimulus packages of credits worth VND4.4 trillion ($209.5 million).

The proposal, which would submit to the Prime Minister for approval, included VND2 trillion ($95.2 million) package for raw materials purchasers and VND2.4 trillion ($114.3 million) ones for tra fish breeders

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