Mekong Delta predicts seafood export surge

Mekong Delta predicts seafood export surge

The Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces expect to export seafood and rice worth US$10.2 billion this year, according to the Can Tho Statistics Office.

The provinces reported $850 million worth of exports for seafood and rice in January alone.

The office estimates that to achieve this target, the region will have to produce 3.7 million tonnes of seafood to meet demand for raw material from 198 seafood processing factories in the region.

These provinces will also have to grow rice on a total land area of 4.2 million hectares, including 80 per cent of the total area growing high-quality rice products for export processing.

Meanwhile, the provinces will work to improve the quality of trade promotion programmes by lending support to enterprises for a market study, as well as conduct marketing and advertising activities in many export markets in Asia, Africa, Australia, the European Union (EU) and North America.

They have also paid attention to developing quality management according to international standards and updated global experiences in risk management for trading activities, along with coming up with specific financial solutions for exporters.

The provinces have implemented strong support programmes for the export rice industry, export credit guarantees, and undertaken the development and management of supply chain and value added services related to imports and exports to limit risk in external trade relations to a minimum level.

Loans worth VND56 trillion ($2.616 billion) in total have been taken for enterprises to boost investment for the renovation of technology, expansion of production scale and for changing the structure of export products to improve the competitive ability and add value, according to the office.

This measure is expected to increase export volume by 20 per cent for high-grade rice and 5 per cent for high-grade seafood this year, compared with last year.

Ca Mau Province, the largest exporter of seafood over the past 15 years, expects to touch $1.4 billion in export value this year, accounting for 19.4 per cent of the total seafood export value of the Cuu Long Delta region.

Last year, the Cuu Long Delta provinces reported a year-on-year increase of $700 million in export value of seafood and for rice to $8.9 billion.

They also promoted trade activities in Asian, European and North American countries, stepped up high-grade rice exports to Japan, the EU, the United States, Singapore and Australia, which are markets with strict technical barriers.