Fish is too much that farmers cannot sell when shrimps lack and the price increases sharply.

Russian market: not as good as expected
In the middle of this year, after there was information that Russia would open the market again for pangasius for Vietnamese seafood exporters, a lot of predictions was made about the production of exporting pangasius to Russia in this year from 70.000 tonnes to 120.000 tonnes. That were hopes for pangasius in the situation of decreasing situation of the global market due to economic recession.

Furthermore, at that time, for  enterprises, Vasep and specialists in agriculture, global economic recession affected Vietnamese economy but pangasius was an exception. Seafood specialists explained that consumers would be saving in their expenditure when the price of pangasius was cheap and suitable for consumers of many markets.

However, currently, when some markets have positive signs, export to Russia and Ukraina which have been two main markets of Vietnamese pangasius in 2008 is decreasing to the level which is considered to be “unstoppable decrease”.

In last October, Russian market just bought 400 tonnes pangasius of 0.6 million USD which decreases 95% compared to the same period last year and much lower than 8,000 tonnes of the previous month.

It is the fact that many enterprises of exporting pangasius consider Russia as a “hope” for a gloomy picture of this year’s seafood market. However, on the contrary to report, after opening the market again, export pangasius to Russia decreases continuously and that is the reason why pangasius export in this October was just 500.000 tonnes of which value was 1.12 billion USD, 10% below the value of the same period.

In the middle of the year, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development predicted that pangasius export could reach 1.5 billion USD but now, many enterprises think that export is just 1.2-1.3 billion USD.

Farm owners are in great difficulties
Pangasius export decreases, the stock which was processed of enterprise in this November is so many, the price of domestic material pangsius decreases sharply and enterprises even do not want to buy. According to owners of many large farm in Dong Thap, price offered by enterprises is just 14,500-14,800 VND/kg.

Mr Cap Van Nha, farm owner in Dong Thap calculates that just expenditure for feed is 12,500 VND/kg fish as well as expenditure of breeds, caring, water and electricity, the total expenses to farm fish in farm scale (in smaller scale, the price could be higher), is 14,500 VND/kg which is equal to the buying price of factories.

However, “the buying price offered by factories costs great loss to farmers because we do not cover the bank interest and the loss of 15-20% in production” Mr Nha noticed.
The issue that makes Mr Nha and many other farm owners quite angry is that in the middle of this year, enterprises as well as specialists expressed on newspapers that pangasius was expected to lack of material at the end of the year due to good condition. As a result, many households which have stopped farming due to loss last year managed to borrow capital to farm again.

Enterprises explain the reason of low buy price is due to low output, Russia market is not as expected and thus, enterprises have to sell preferentially fish which has been processed in frozen inventories.

Shrimps’ prices increase again
Fish which was expected to be not enough is too much when shrimp which was predicted to be superfluous is lacking seriously. According to Vasep, during the recent half of this month, material shrimps provided to factories of processing seafood in Cuu Long Delta decrease sharply.

Kim Anh company in Soc Trang, one of large shrimp exporter, which used to buy 50 tonnes material shrimps every months, buy just 10 tonnes when the price of shrimps increases 15,000-20,000 VND/kg. According to it, shrimp of 20 shrimps/kg costs 150,000 VND/kg, shrimps of 30 shrimps costs 110,000-120,000 VND/kg, shrimp of 40 shrimps costs 90,000 VND/kg which increases averagely 15,000-20,000 compared to that of October.

The reason is simple, the demand of consuming shrimps on global market still has increasing tendency when the area that has not been harvested in Cuu Long Delta is not many and enterprises improving buying to process for Christmas and New Year.

As fish, last year, many households farmed shrimps and suffered loss. Thus, this year’s area decreased and the area cannot meet the demand. Mr Huynh Thanh Tan, Director of Cases company in Ca Mau considers that beside lack of shrimps, bad weather also makes caught shrimp decrease. In Cases company, bought shrimps just meet 60% the production demand.

Export seafood in the first 10 months just reaches 3.488 billion USD which decreases 9.7% compared to the same period last year.

Source: Kinh te Sai Gon

Translated by Vietfish Community