Based on statistics from the Vietnam General Department of Vietnam Customs, in the fist 11 months of 2017, two-way trade value between Vietnam and Australia reached US$ 5.9 billion, in which Vietnam’s export value to Australia was US$ 2.96 billion, up 13% and the import value settled at US$ 2.92 billion, an increase of 32% compared to the same period of 2016.
In the past five years, Vietnam has been the largest supplier of processed shrimps for Australia.
|
In the first 11 months of 2017, the majority of Vietnamese goods exported to Australia has experienced an increase in trade value; notably, some categories of goods have high growth rate such as electronic devices of 283%; steel products of 161%; transportation vehicles and autoparts of 86%; toys, sport accessories up 58%; chemical products of 51%; handicrafts up 39%.
Seafood is one of Vietnamese products with high potential to export to Australia, as the country consumes nearly 1 million tons of seafood annually. However, domestic suppliers only meet 30% demands of Australian market, while the remaining 70% is imported from abroad, including shrimps, octopus, canned fish and cuttle. It is forecasted that the trend of seafood import will increase, which is proportional with the growing scale of population and customers’ favor of seafood.
At present, Vietnam is the fourth largest seafood supplier to Australia, after Thailand, New Zealand and China, but only accounted for 11% of the market share. With regard to shrimp, Vietnam is the largest supplier to Australia, contributing 35% of the total export value.
In December, trade value of fishery products was estimated at 714 million USD, taking the total value of Vietnam’s seafood export in 2017 at 8.32 billion USD, up 18% compared to the previous year’s figure. The US, Japan, China and Korea are the top 4 import markets of Vietnam’s seafood, accounting for 55.3% of export value for fishery products.
Vietnam Trade Representative in Australia stated Australia continue to be the potential market for Vietnam’s fisheries. In the past five years, Vietnam has been the largest supplier of processed shrimps for Australia. Despite the market’s strict requirements, it is considered a promising market for Vietnamese firms due to high and increasing demand. Meanwhile, Australia tends to narrow down its import markets and focus on only major ones, which is also an advantage for Vietnam.
Currently, Australia is the 7th largest market of Vietnamese shrimps, which consumes 3.6% of the country’s total shrimp export volume. In 2016, Vietnam earned 114.6 million USD from shipping shrimps to Australia, 78 percent of which was processed shrimps.
