Vietnam is estimated to earn 678 million U.S. dollars from exporting seafood, including shrimps, prawns, catfish and octopuses in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year rise of 11.9 percent.

Vietnam has targeted seafood export earnings of 3.6 billion dollars this year, up 7.1 percent against last year, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers on Friday.

It has set targets of annual seafood export growth of over 9 percent in the 2006-2010 period, and export revenues of 4-4.5 billion dollars in 2010.

The country is boosting export of different seafood items to traditional markets such as China, the United States, the European Union, Japan, Canada and South Korea, and some new ones like the Middle East, East Europe, Africa and South America.

Vietnam is also focusing on ensuring quality of products, intensifying their trade promotion, building more seafood brand names, and enhancing its capacity of forecasting seafood prices and export demand, said the association.

Source: Xinhua