Vietnamese shrimp producers are bracing for a potentially bad year, as the country looks set to miss its 2023 export targets for shrimp and seafood, despite a buoyant performance in 2022.
According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), the country's seafood industry as a whole has witnessed a drop of more than a quarter in value during the first 5 months of 2023, compared to the same period last year.
VASEP notes that seafood exports to Europe, the USA and China all decreased significantly, with a drop of 50% in fresh seafood exports to the USA, and a reduction of 37% to China.
Vietnam's shrimp industry has been particularly hard hit. Shrimp exports during the first five months of 2023 reached US $1.22 billion, a decrease of almost 35% compared to the same period last year.
VASEP attributes the slump to high inflation in the industry's two primary markets, the USA and the EU, with consumer purchasing power dwindling as a result. The US is the world's largest importer of Vietnamese shrimp, while the EU buys up 14% of the country's shrimp exports.
The spring has been equally gloomy for Vietnam's other key market, China, with shrimp exports to the Chinese market down by 40% compared to last year – despite China relaxing its rules on inspection and detainment of imported products in the wake of the COVID19 pandemic.
The situation has inflicted significant losses on shrimp farmers in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam, of which 90% are smallholders, according to a recent report in the Vietnamese online newspaper VietnamNet. Shrimp farmers in the area have been struggling with a challenging combination of low sales prices and rising feed and production costs, at the same time as adverse weather conditions and outbreaks of disease, according to the VietnamNet report.