Vietnamese seafood participates in the Seafood Expo North America

According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), after a 2-year suspension due to the Covid-19 pandemic, from March 13-15, 2022, Vietnam's leading seafood exporters will attend the Seafood Expo North America at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center (USA).

Attending the Seafood Expo North America this time are large-scale seafood enterprises with extensive experience in exporting to the North American market.

Big names in the seafood industry that have registered to participate in Seafood Expo Noth America include Bien Dong Seafood, Havuco, Minh Phu Seafood Corp, Vinh Hoan Corp, NVD Seafood Corp, Caseamex, Mekongfish, Nghi Son Co, Ltd., etc, according to Ta Ha, pangasius (tra fish) market expert of VASEP.

North America is a big market for Vietnamese seafood. In which, the US is the leading seafood export market of Vietnam's seafood industry and many seafood enterprises during the past 20 years.

In 2021, Vietnamese seafood exports to the US reached a turnover record of US$ 2,048 billion. This is the first time seafood exports to the US surpassed the US$ 2 billion mark. With this result, the US continues to be the largest market for Vietnamese seafood, accounting for 23% of the total value of seafood exports.

In the same year, seafood exports to Canada reached US$ 262.76 million, accounting for 3% of the total seafood export value. Canada is currently in the Top 10 largest markets of Vietnamese seafood.

The main seafood products that Vietnam exports to North American market are shrimp, pangasius, tuna, etc. The US is currently the largest market for Vietnamese shrimp and Vietnam is currently the fourth largest market in terms of supplying shrimp for this market. For pangasius, the US was Vietnam's second largest market in 2021. For tuna, the US was the largest market in 2021, accounted for nearly 45% of the total value of Vietnam's tuna exports.

Seafood Expo Noth America has long been an event receiving great attention of Vietnamese seafood businesses. Due to the influence of Covid-19, the expo has not taken place in the past 2 years, so many Vietnamese seafood exporters hope this time will bring them good opportunities.

Seafood Expo Noth America is one of the important specialized fairs in the US market. The fair is an opportunity to help Vietnamese seafood enterprises approach customers, and at the same time promote exports to the US market in particular and the North American region in general.

Therefore, Vietnamese seafood businesses are very pleased to be back and look forward to meeting and cooperating with many purchasing partners from the US and other countries at the Vietnam seafood booth (Vietnam Pavilion, 1033 - 1041) at Seafood Expo Noth America.

According to VASEP, over the past two years, the Association's traditional trade promotion activities have been suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Among the international seafood fairs, Vietnamese exporters are most interested in the Seafood Expo North America, the Seafood Expo Global and the China Seafood and Fisheries Fair. These are the three most prestigious and largest-scale seafood specialized fairs in the world, attracting all countries supplying seafood golbally. 

The attraction of these fairs is not only billions of US dollars in trade transactions, but also a place for businesses to learn about market needs, food trends that will define the consuming the tendency globally, and more importantly, this is where the products are introduced most vividly.

Seafood is a food industry specializing in deep processing and freezing, with the characteristics that it is necessary to try, taste and see the color and freshness of the product to have the fullest feeling. Therefore, seafood enterprises consider the traditional fairs to be the most effective trade promotion channel to find the most reliable customers.

2021 was the year when the seafood industry came closest to the US$ 9 billion mark with a total of US$ 8.9 billion in export turnover.

Although the target of US$ 9 billion has not yet been realized, the seafood export results achieved in 2021 were impressive in their own right, especially in the context of the heavily impacts by Covid-19.

Information from the General Department of Customs shows that in the first month of 2022, seafood export turnover reached US$ 872 million, up to 43.3% over the same period in 2021. This is the first time seafood export turnover exceeded US$ 800 million in a month. It can be said that the export results in January are signs of an even more favorable year for the whole seafood industry.

Seafood exports still have many opportunities to rise even higher this year, especially when many importers are tending to shift seafood processing activities from China to Vietnam. In order to hold firm to and take advantage of this current trend in a timely manner, it is very important to facilitate the import of raw seafood.

Therefore VASEP has repeatedly proposed to the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in recent times to consider not implementing quarantine for frozen processed seafood products used as food with the products being imported for production and processing for export, not for domestic consumption.