Vietnam reaped over one billion U.S. dollars from exporting seafood, including shrimps, prawns, catfish and octopuses in the first four months of this year, a year-on- year increase of 20.4 percent, according to the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers on Wednesday.

The country has eyed seafood export turnovers of 3.6 billion dollars this year, up 7.1 percent against last year, it said, adding that Vietnam's seafood exports to the European Union (EU) is likely to surge 49 percent to 1.5 billion dollars in 2007.

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

Vietnam 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.

Source: Xinhua