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The local aquatic product processing exporters faced many difficulties last year; however, they strived to overcome hardship, reaching an impressive growth with the export turnover value of US$42 million, a surge of 33.4 percent against 2009.
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Workers of Quy Nhon Frozen JSC are at work.
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Overcome difficulties
The province’s aquatic processing sector saw many challenges in 2010, particularly the shortage of raw material.
The shrimp output in Binh Dinh, for example, couldn’t meet the demand of shrimp processing plants which expanded their production scale. What’s more, the price was unable to be controlled as the breeders often sold shrimps to those who paid higher prices.
The shrimp output of the main crop only met a maximum of 70-80 percent of the processing capacity, according to the Department of Industry and Trade.
Alongside these, the source of aquatic products has becoming exhausted while the offshore fishing vessels were inefficient, affecting the aquatic product output.
In late months of 2010, the price of ocean tuna reduced by 20-25 percent; thus, some fishing boats had to stay inshore, causing the shortage of raw material which only met 50 percent of the demand.
Most exporters also faced the lack of manpower due to the labor competitiveness. Often, the aquatic product processing plants offer low salary while the frequent shortage of raw material causes more lay-offs. Many laborers are not, hence, interested in this field.
The province’s aquatic product processing sector also met another difficulty caused by trade protection and technical barriers from importers.
In addition, Vietnam has begun implementing regulations on Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing since January 1, 2010, making businesses suffer a wide range of difficulties and more expenses.
Speed up
“The difficulties are also chances for enterprises to propose new strategies,” said Vo Mai Hung, an official of Department of Industry and Trade. “They have focused on high added value products which require fewer raw materials and generate high profit.”
The Lam Son Import Export Foodstuff Joint Stock Company, for instance, invested VND6 billion in installing new frozen facilities. Binh Dinh Aquaculture Joint Stock Company focused on importing raw material. Also, many businesses have coordinated with each other for mutual benefits.
Many experts forecasted that the province’s aquatic processing sector will have more opportunities to develop as the global economy showed signs of recovery and saw the ever-increasing demand for aquatic products.
The exporters must enhance their competitiveness in exporting aquatic products by overcoming the hardship.
The functional bodies need to implement more preferential policies, such as the policy on fishing vessel modernization, the policy on encouraging the model of community-based fishery management, and the policy on quality management system.
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