Vietnam`s seafood exports to Australia would increase strongly in the time ahead if the Australians remove their quarantine barrier for seafood products to the country, according to Consulate General of Vietnam in Sydney, Australia.
Australia is a potential market for Vietnamese seafood exports, including shrimp, if the Australians remove their quarantine barrier for seafood products to the country, according to Consulate General of Viet Nam in Sydney, Australia. Vietnam's seafood exports are expected to increase strongly in the future.
Australia 's total demand for seafood products is one million per year.
Meanwhile, the country's total output of seafood products from catching and production is between 220,000 tonnes and 280,000 tonnes per year, and 50% of the total has been exported.
Australia's demand for imported seafood has increased strongly. The import value of seafood to Australia grew from 868 million USD in 2011 to 1.9 billion USD in 2014.
According to the Consulate General of Vietnam in Sydney, export prices of Vietnamese seafood products are half that of Thai seafood products, so Vietnam owns a huge advantage to promote its seafood exports to Australia.
Australian customers like back prawn that is a key product of Vietnam's shrimp industry. But Vietnamese prawn exported to Australia face stricter quarantine barriers than seafood exported to other strict markets such as the United States (US) and the European Union (EU), because they have white spot disease and yellow head virus. Due to the fact that its shrimp and prawn exports had white spot disease and yellow head virus, Vietnam was not ranked among the countries cleared by Australia.
To overcome the quarantine barrier, local seafood enterprises should ensure quality of exported prawn and shrimp, according to Consulate General of Vietnam in Sydney. Vietnam should organise negotiations with Australia to abolish inspection of white spot disease and yellow head virus.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said Australia has small scale production in shrimp so those diseases would not have much effect on the domestic seafood production.
Thus, Vietnam could propose to Australia to abolish inspection of the two diseases or have a bilateral agreement on the methods of inspection for products with the two diseases, according to the association.
The association reported in the first six months of this year, Vietnam's seafood export value saw a year-on-year increase of 2.4% to 80.9 million USD to Australia.
Australia was the seventh largest market for Vietnamese export seafood products, after the US, the EU, Japan, and China, beside the Republic of Korea and ASEAN. Currently, shrimp accounts for 31% of Vietnam's seafood export value to Australia.
Source : The Hanoitimes
Key words : Australia, expected to be key market, for Vietnam's seafood exports.
