Agriculture & Food

According to customs data, in 2022, Vietnam's catfish export to Chinese Mainland and Hong Kong will reach US $712 million, a year-on-year increase of 58%. There are two main categories of products to China, one is frozen catfish slices (commodity code 030462), accounting for more than 74%, worth US $531 million, and the other is clean frozen whole fish (commodity code 030324), accounting for more than 25%, worth nearly US $180 million.

Among all exporting countries, China is the country with the largest demand for frozen whole fish. According to customs data, the trend of China's import of frozen whole fish is stronger than the import of frozen slices in the past five years.

According to customs data, during 2018-2022, Vietnam's export of frozen catfish slices to China increased by 84%, while the export of whole fish increased by 143%.

According to customs data, Vietnam's frozen whole catfish accounted for only 15% of the total catfish exports to China in 2018. By 2022, this proportion will increase to 25%, while the proportion of sliced catfish will decrease from 88% in 2019 to 75% today. Guangdong, Shandong and Fujian are the production areas of aquatic products and the main concentration areas of aquatic products processing, with an annual processing capacity of 28.5 million tons. In addition to domestic consumption, a large part of China's imported fish is used for processing and re-export, especially catfish whole fish products. Industry insiders believe that after three years of anti-epidemic, the total import of China's seafood will increase again in 2023, and the turnover of various seafood products will hit a new high.

According to customs data, China's imports of frozen fish accounted for 45.4% of the total imports of seafood in 2022. In the future, China's imported frozen fish products will still have great growth potential in terms of increasing the added value of products. Shrimp, cod, squid, catfish and salmon will be the products with a large proportion of imports.