Boom in ‘grey trade’ drives Vietnam’s seafood imports from $25m to over $5bn
Louis Harkell, senior reporter with Undercurrent News for Asia, gives insight into the booming 'grey' trade in seafood with Vietnam and China
Like many port cities, Haiphong, in northern Vietnam, has always had a seedier side. In the 1990s, the city was the stomping ground of one of Vietnam’s most notorious gang bosses, Vu Thi Hoang Dung, also known as Dung Ha, or Dung the Lesbian.
Today it is a hotbed of smuggling, also referred to as the "grey trade" or "grey channel".
Based on an Undercurrent News analysis of international trade data and information from industry sources, smuggling is the main reason behind Vietnam’s increase in seafood imports from $25 million in 2001 to over $5 billion in 2016; a rise unmatched in its compound annual growth rate – 40% -- by any other country in the world.
The grey trade is well-known; it refers mostly to seafood unloaded in Haiphong and sent onwards to the border with China, where it is taken across the border illicitly to avoid Chinese customs duties. But, despite Vietnam now being the world's fifth largest seafood importer, behind only the US, Japan, China and Spain, important questions remain largely unanswered.
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