According to the Vietnamese Trade Counselor to Egypt, Dang Ngoc Quang, with its current level of demand and its population in Egypt, if Vietnam improves its marketing, its export turnover of basa fish to the country is likely to increase to US$300 million.
With a population of 80 million, Egypt is a large potential export market for Vietnam. However, Vietnam’s export turnover to this market far from matches its potential.
Vietnam’s seafood exports to Egypt reached US$68 million in 2008, US$60 million in 2009 but only US$12.2 million in the first four months of this year. The sharp drop is due to disinformation spread about Vietnam’s basa fish by the Egyptian media in late March 2009. However, the product is still very sought after by many markets but the consumer power remains low while the demand is still high.
Fish and seafood is a long-standing favourite dish in Egypt but domestic sources of supply from big lakes and the Nile River fail to meet the domestic demand for different kinds of seafood. Therefore, Egypt has to import a large volume of seafood from abroad such as cuttlefish, shrimp, basa fish, sea crab. Vietnam mainly exports shrimp and basa fish fillets to Egypt.
In early 2009, before the misleading information about Vietnam’s basa catfish was released, Vietnamese basa products were available everywhere in Egypt, big and small supermarkets, markets and retail shops.
In fact, Egypt has a great demand for Vietnamese basa fish, which are sold at good prices and high quality.
Currently, the product still can be seen in major supermarkets such as Carefour, Metro and several wholesale markets and it is also available daily in five-star hotels in Egypt.
The Director of the Al Hamd Company, Abdal Rahman Abu Shamah said, “Vietnamese basa fish ranks first amongst different kinds of fillet basa products in the Egyptian market. My company imports between 30-40 tonnes per month and distributes to supermarkets, shops and big hotels in Egypt. We are expecting to increase our import volume by 20 tonnes per month in the near future.”
Staff at the Carefour and Metro supermarkets said that Vietnam’s basa fish is high quality, delicious, easy to cook and at a reasonable price,
Mr Ashrab from the Metro supermarket said that his supermarket sells from 30-40 kg of basa fish imported from Vietnam per day and that his family still uses this product everyday. However, many people still feel unsafe about eating this product because they don’t have any accurate information on it.
Over the past year, the Vietnamese Trade Office has worked closely with the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP) and seafood exporters to organise seminars, forums and fairs to promote Vietnamese seafood products. However, Egyptian consumers are not aware of this.
The Vietnamese Trade Counselor to Egypt, Dang Ngoc Quang said that to raise the export turnover of seafood, exporters need to ensure quality and advertise more in the Egyptian market to win the Egyptian consumers’ trust