Shrimp beats pangasius as top Vietnam export

Driven by demand from the United States, shrimp has overtaken pangasius as Vietnam's leading seafood export as prices reached their highest level in 10 years, VASEP announced on Monday, reports www.megafishnet.com with reference to Seafoodsource.

In the first five months of 2010, shrimp exports topped USD 558 million (EUR 427.1 million). However, the higher prices also hit Vietnam's domestic supply, resulting in a nearly 50 percent increase in white shrimp prices.

Shrimp wasn't the only seafood to see a value increase, and the general increase in prices drove Vietnam's seafood exports up by 17.5 percent to USD 1.63 billion (EUR 1.2 billion), compared to the same time period last year.

Based on this data, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development said seafood exports for the year could increase by 13.4 percent to USD 4.8 billion (EUR 3.7 billion) or about 1.35 million tons, compared to 2009.

Pangasius could account for 600,000 metric tons of that, despite the fact that a large decline in import prices from the EU caused domestic prices to drop to VND 15,500 (USD 0.81, EUR 0.62) per kilogram.