Seafood exports are cooling, and growth is slowing

DNHN - According to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), following a rapid surge of 39-62 per cent in the first four months of the year, seafood exports began to slow in May.

While production and business outcomes have been excellent in recent years, seafood businesses are confronting a situation where exports are exhibiting symptoms of cooling. This is predicted to have an impact on the company's growth rate shortly.

In May, exports climbed by 34%, and in June, they increased by 18%. In July, seafood exports continued to slow, with an export value of US$970 million, up 14% over the same period last year but down 4% from the previous month.

Due to a large number of imports from January to May, seafood firms reported that stockpiles in export markets, particularly the United States, had reached a high level. Along with the low season for seafood exports, export growth is likely to slow in the third quarter.

According to an analyst from SSI Securities Company, the average selling price of Vietnamese vannamei shrimp in the US market is currently greater than that of India and Ecuador, therefore enterprises should be cautious. Exporters will struggle to sustain the average selling price of shrimp as high as it was in the first half of 2022.

According to SSI, this will likely have an impact on the gross profit margins of shrimp processors who rely on the US as their primary export market, since raw shrimp prices are predicted to rise in the second half of 2022 owing to a supply shortfall caused by the disease epidemic.

Concerning the pangasius export market, a Rong Viet Securities Company (VDSC) analyst predicted that shipments will drop in the third quarter compared to the second quarter before rebounding in the fourth quarter.

Due to rising global food inflation, shipments to the US market will fall dramatically in volume in July, but selling prices will remain high. The Chinese market, on the other hand, may revive as a result of the easing of the import ban regulation for frozen food tainted with COVID-19. After two years of falling imports, China's demand for pangasius is high.

VDSC anticipates that increased exports to this market will help to offset the loss in the US market, and enterprises with a primary export market to China will profit.

Analysts anticipate that demand for seafood goods will surge fast in September, right before the holiday season from November to December, but that it will be difficult to recover to the high level in the early months of the following year.

PV