Patterns and Determinants of Vietnamese Seafood Exports

Abstract

By employing the gravity model using the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood estimator, the air of this study was to investigate the determinants of Vietnam’s world seafood exports from 2000-2018 at both the aggregate and sub-sectoral level. In recent decades, Vietnam has rapidly increased its seafood exports to the global market, with a concentration on its exports to the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea. Its seafood export subsectors have been diversified among fish products (fresh, chilled, or frozen), crustaceans, mollusks, aquatic invertebrate products, aquatic fish, and invertebrates (prepared or persevered) products. The estimations show that Vietnam’s seafood exports (at both aggregate and subsector level) are determined by the size of the importing partners’ economies and income levels. At the aggregate level, Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the European Union, and North America were found to promote Vietnam’s seafood exports. At the subsector level, we found that North America had a positive link with Vietnam’s export of fish (fresh, chilled, or frozen), while there was a negative nexus between many regions with respect to the export of crustaceans, mollusks and aquatic invertebrates, as well as aquatic fish and invertebrates (prepared or persevered). To promote Vietnam’s seafood exports to the world market at the aggregate level, the country should enhance its establishment of preferential trade agreements with certain target markets, while at the subsector level, Vietnam should have a dynamic approach regarding the selection of its export destinations.