According to vasep.com.vn
In the past two years, the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement (EVFTA) has brought positive results to the Vietnamese economy, especially in the context of the complicated developments of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Vietnamese enterprises have taken advantage of the opportunity from the EU’s tariff reduction under the EVFTA, opening up great opportunities for each item. In particular, the seafood industry is still the industry that makes the best use of exports to the EU.
At the seminar “Using EVFTA to build brand names” on the morning of August 8, Ms. Le Hang – Communication Director of the Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that even though the industry has made good use of it, from the EVFTA, but there are 4 big challenges for seafood when exporting to the EU.
Ms. Hang said that although VASEP and the Ministry of Industry and Trade have had many coordinated programs to train businesses to ensure certification of origin, it is inevitable that they will not learn carefully. Because each market has its own controls, leading to misunderstandings about CO levels, rules of origin. This is an obstacle for seafood when exporting to the EU.
The second is IUU yellow card. According to Ms. Hang, this is a limiting factor when exporting seafood to the EU, causing a shortage of raw materials for seafood export to this market.
Ms. Le Hang – Communications Director of the Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers shared at the talk show (Photo: BCT).
Third, the current EU inflation causes trade to this market to be in a serious crisis. “This reality is leading EU consumers to tighten their spending, focusing on affordable items. On the other hand, the lowest EUR-USD exchange rate after 20 years makes consumers limit spending and this makes importers will negotiate with importers in delaying orders,” Hang said.
Fourth, is the competitive pressure of Vietnam’s seafood against other competitors, such as competition for shrimp from India and Ecuador… due to supply and transportation costs. In addition, there are other long-term challenges such as the increasingly higher certification requirements of the market, or environmental and labor requirements, which are also serious problems for Vietnamese seafood when exploiting. EU market.
The representative of VASEP emphasized that, in order to take advantage of the EU market, first of all, the difficulties of IUU yellow card must be removed, and the green body should be regained to increase opportunities for seafood.
“If Vietnam is to be converted to a red card, it will risk losing the EU market. And so, each year, it will lose 500 million USD for the seafood industry to the EU. In particular, the EU is a oriented market that will dominate other markets in strict control of origin,” Hang said.
Fishery is the industry that is evaluated to make the best use of the products exported to the EU from the EVFTA Agreement.
According to Ms. Hang, in addition to strict regulations on origin, the seafood industry as well as other industries also faces challenges in competition with other countries, from low productivity, small-scale production, no concentrated production area leads to quality and quantity limitations.
Therefore, the State needs to have investment support in science and technology for breeding animals, animal feed, etc. Especially, it is necessary to strengthen solutions to take advantage of processing by-products in the fisheries industry, by by-products. accounting for about 40-50% of aquatic production.
Regarding the EVFTA Agreement, VASEP hopes to receive more support from the Import-Export Department, the Ministry of Industry and Trade to guide businesses to make the most of tariff incentives, as well as to best apply the rules of origin to reduce customs problems when exporting seafood to the EU market.
