Vietnam’s seafood exports continued falling 23 percent in September, following a significant decline of 36 percent in August. In first 9 months of 2021, the export of seafood from Vietnam hit 6.2 billion USD, up 3 percent year-on-year.
Exports in past 2 months decreased as the southern localities had to impose social distancing measures to fight Covid – 19 pandemic.
In the first half of September, most of the southern localities still applied social distancing under the Prime Minister’s Directive 16, many processing factories suspended operations, leading to a decrease of 31 percent in the nation’s total seafood export turnover. In the second half of the month, several localities began loosening social distancing, which helped restore some production activities.
Seafood export turnover in September 2021 reached over 628 million USD, down 23 percent over the same period in 2020.
In the month, seafood exports to the US recovered with a slight increase of 3 percent year-on-year to 159 million USD, while those to other markets continued to decline, with China seeing the biggest drop (nearly 50 percent), and Japan, Canada, the UK and Australia also experiencing decreases of between 35 and 45 percent.
In first 9 months of 2021, Vietnam seafood exports hit 6.2 billion USD, up 3 percent year-on-year. Of which, shrimp exports reached 2.76 billion USD, up 2.6 percent, the exports of pangasius and tuna rose by 3.2 percent and 9 percent to 1 billion USD and 520 million USD, respectively.
Vietnam seafood exports by the end of 2021 is expected to to be equal to that of 2020, or 8.4 billion USD.