Vietnam will, between 2006 and 2010, focus on shrimp trademark construction and trade promotion in the United States and Japan, the two markets it is facing difficulties, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Trade on Monday.

Vietnam will pour some 1.4 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) (88, 600 US dollars) in the activities in the period. Besides, it is improving quality of shrimps, and diversifying products.

The country is encountering difficulties in shipping shrimps to the United States, since the foreign country has required local exporters to pay bonds to insure payment of their anti-dumping duties to the US Customs. The formula used by the US Customs sets the bond at an amount equal to the exporting country's current anti-dumping rate multiplied by the gross amount of business done by the exporter in 2004.

For Vietnam's shrimp exporters as a whole, the 4.58-percent anti-dumping rate on shrimp, multiplied by the 420 million US dollars in Vietnamese export receipts in 2004 for shrimp, would equal a total bond value of 20 million US dollars.

Local exporters would receive refunds after the US Department of Commerce reconsiders the shrimp anti-dumping rates in August 2007.

Japan, another important shrimp market of Vietnam, is adopting wait-and-see attitude, which worries many Vietnamese exporters. Japanese importers are waiting for prices of the local product to drop due to the export difficulties in the US market.

Recently, Vietnam poured 700 million VND (44,300 US dollars) in trade promotion and trademark construction for tuna to boost the product export to Japan and the European Union.

Vietnam, which earned 684 million US dollars from exporting seafood to the world market in the first 4 months of this year, posting a year-on-year increase of 7.4 percent, has targeted to make seafood revenue of 2.6 billion US dollars in 2005.

Source: Xinhua