Seafood exports exceed 4 billion USD despite problems

Hanoi (VNA) - The total value of seafood exports is expected to hit 4.3
billion USD this year, despite the industry facing a number of difficulties,
according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Ministry experts predict that seafood exports will continue to grow during
2009 and that exports of frozen shrimp, "tra" and "basa" catfish, frozen
cuttlefish and octopus will remain high.

Currently, the European Union is the biggest market for Vietnamese seafood,
accounting for 25 percent of Vietnam 's exported seafood by volume. It
is followed by Japan and the US .

Over the past year, seafood enterprises have faced numerous difficulties.
Many European customers have cancelled their contracts with Vietnamese
partners as a result of late deliveries and this situation may persist in
the future.

One seafood exporter, Minh Phu Seafood Corp. needs to ship 10 containers of
seafood a day to overseas markets, but can only ship between fifty to
seventy percent of this due to huge backlogs at container ports in Ho Chi
Minh City and other southern provinces.

According to Minh Phu's General Director Le Van Quang, as well as problems
stemming from late deliveries, Vietnamese enterprises are suffering from a
lack of manpower and materials as many farmers have decided to put the
products into storage.-Enditem