HCM City (VNA) – Variouschallenges face Vietnam’s shrimp exports to the US, as aside from highanti-dumping duties, Vietnamese businesses have to tackle harsh policies the USuses to protect domestic production.

Over the past decade, Vietnam’s shrimp exportsto the US have fluctuated between 500 million USD and more than 1 billion USD.After the peak of more than 1 billion USD in 2014, exports to the US havebecome stagnant, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters andProducers (VASEP).

The figure reached 255.7 million USD in thefirst half of 2018, down 7.5 percent year on year. The US is currently thethird biggest importer of Vietnamese shrimp, accounting for 15.6 percent oftotal shrimp shipments.

The US’s National Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration recently included shrimp in the Seafood Import MonitoringProgramme (SIMP). Accordingly, from December 31 this year, importers have tocomply with all SIMP requirements such as providing sufficient data aboutharvest, fishing and trips to US ports and ensuring that products arere-traceable within two years.

This new regulation is worrying many businessesand could hamper shrimp exports to this market, VASEP said.

[Shrimp, abalone to be under US import mo🎃nitor 💎from December 31]

Meanwhile, shrimp processors and exporters ofVietnam are also encountering “relatively unreasonable” protectionist measures inthe US, said Vo Van Phuc – General Director of the Vietnam Clean SeafoodCorporation.

For example, in early March 2018, the USDepartment of Commerce announced preliminary results of the anti-dumping orderon frozen warm water shrimp from Vietnam. It put the preliminary rate at arecord high – 25.39 percent.

Growing trade protectionism has spread from theUS to other countries, especially in the Middle East where “unreasonable”barriers to aquatic products of Vietnam are being erected.

The shrimp sector as well as the fisheriesindustry is forecast to face more challenges in terms of tariff and technicalrequirements due to growing protectionism.

The decline of shrimp exports to the US is alsoattributed to fierce competition from other shrimp suppliers, particularlyIndia, Indonesia and Thailand. High input cost in farming have also made shrimpprices of Vietnam higher than its rivals.

Challenges are also coming from the US-Chinatrade war, VAEP noted, saying that because of the US’s high import tariffs,China will import less raw shrimp for processing and re-export. This could leadto a drop in Vietnam’s shipments of raw shrimp to China since raw shrimp madeup 94 percent of the country’s shrimp exports to China in 2017.

Additionally, the US will examine the origin ofVietnamese shrimp more strictly as Chinese firms may take advantage of Vietnamto falsify the origin of their shrimp products.

VASEP said Vietnamese companies should considerthe trade war a chance to gain a foothold by improving product quality, beingmore active and making better use of free trade agreements. They also need to stayupdated on the list of goods subject to high tariffs of both the US and China,along with the fluctuation of the US dollar and the Vietnamese dong, to taketimely actions. –VNA