Lobster– tag –

Imports of Canadian lobster and snow crab into Vietnam rose about 40% over two years, reaching US$61 million in 2025. In a market growing into a buyer of premium seafood, we read the sales-channel potential that Japanese seafood buyers hold.

Vietnamese lobster farming depends on imports for more than 90% of its juveniles. We explain the quarantine procedures set out in Document No. 2625 of 2026 (isolation of up to 10 days, testing for white-spot disease and milky disease), and unpack how upstream disease control shapes the quality assurance of exports to China and Japan, from the perspective of Japanese buyers.

98.5% of Vietnamese lobster exports go to China. The first half of 2026 was US$584.6 million, up 44%, but we read the danger of over-concentration shown by the 2023 spiny-lobster restrictions, and the room for diversification into the Japanese market.