VietnamNet 12 Jun 08;
VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep) has forecast the country will find it hard to achieve the year's seafood export target of US$4.25 billion.
Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of Vasep, told the Daily that seafood exporters and producers nationwide were facing many difficulties over the shortage of capital and raw materials.
The country obtained some US$1.5 billion in seafood export revenue in the first five months of the year, with earnings from shrimp decreasing considerably, he said. "Seafood exports this year are seen amounting to a maximum of US$4 billion."
In recent months, many shrimp farms around the country have been reduced because of diseases, especially in the central provinces and the Mekong Delta, leading to an undersupply of shrimp.
For instance, Hoe said, Soc Trang Province in the Mekong Delta has 60,000 hectares under shrimp cultivation, but in the first five months, the province used only 32,000 hectares for shrimp farming. However, some 10,000 shrimps were infected with diseases.
Meanwhile, many areas under the central provinces have been infected with diseases. That has made the shrimp export target of some US$1.5billion unattainable this year.
Last year, the country exported some 950,000 tons of seafood worth some US$3.7 billion. The growth target for this year is 13.3%.
Over the past few months, fish farmers in the Mekong Delta have fallen into an impasse, with their tra and basa catfish finding no buyers and their demand for bank loans to keep the fish alive unmet.
Tran Thien Hai, chairman of the association, said that at the moment there was some 300,000 tons of nature fish remaining unsold in the delta.
Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam Nguyen Van Giau late last week agreed to let the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in eight provinces in the delta lend more funds to fish processors at a monthly interest rate of 1.5% to buy mature fish.
These provinces are An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Vinh Long, Tien Giang, Hau Giang, Ben Tre and Soc Trang.
The price of fish in some provinces in the delta was some VND14,000 or VND15,000 per kg late last week, up VND1,000 from a few weeks back. The processed fish for export was also increasing from US$2.8 per kg to US$3, said Hai.
In a related development, a three-day Vietnam Fisheries International Fair 2008 (Vietfish 2008) will be opened this Thursday at HCMC International Exhibition and Convention Center, 446 Hoang Van Thu Street, HCMC's Tan Binh District.
The three-day annual event organized by Vasep will attract some 128 international and domestic enterprises to participate.
