{"id":1454,"date":"2026-08-13T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/?post_type=industry_news&p=1454"},"modified":"2026-08-13T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T07:00:00","slug":"lobster-china-dependency","status":"publish","type":"industry_news","link":"https:\/\/vietnam-agri.com\/en\/industry_news\/lobster-china-dependency\/","title":{"rendered":"98.5% of Vietnam's lobster exports go to China: the blind spot behind the 44% rise"},"content":{"rendered":"

Vietnamese lobster exports are growing. By the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) tally, the first-half 2026 export value was US$584.6 million (about 87.7 billion yen), 44.3% above the same period a year earlier. The total seafood export value is... not US$580 million. The total is US$5.8 billion (about 870 billion yen), and lobster is just one item accounting for 10.1% of that, or 24.9% viewed across the whole shrimp sector. Because it is easy to mistake the magnitude of the amounts, let us sort it out first.<\/p>\n

The problem is the substance of the growth. Of this US$584.6 million, 98.5%, or US$576 million (about 86.4 billion yen), is headed for China alone. The higher the growth rate, the deeper the concentration on a single buyer. With the importing country changing just one rule, this figure could lose its meaning overnight. For Japanese seafood buyers and importers too, it is a structure that cannot be overlooked in gauging supply stability.<\/p>\n

98.5% dependence on China: US$584.6 million held by a single buyer<\/h2>\n

In China's import statistics, lobster imports in the most recent period were about 69,800 tonnes. Of that, Vietnam stands at the top with 24,100 tonnes (a 34.5% share), pulling away from Canada (15,400 tonnes), the US (9,900 tonnes) and Australia (7,000 tonnes). In both volume and value, Vietnam is the largest supplier to the Chinese market.<\/p>\n

Flipped around, Vietnam's exports are betting on this one market. The same \"single-pole concentration on China\" is occurring with fruit too, China's durian demand and its impact on Vietnamese agriculture<\/a>- it overlaps with the durian structure seen there. For an item with only one buyer, both price and quarantine are decided at the counterparty's whim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Indicator (first half 2026)<\/th>\nFigure<\/th>\nYen conversion (1 dollar = about 150 yen)<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
Total seafood export value<\/td>\nUS$5.8 billion (up 12.7% year on year)<\/td>\nAbout 870 billion yen<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Lobster export value<\/td>\nUS$584.6 million (up 44.3%)<\/td>\nAbout 87.7 billion yen<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Of which, to China (98.5%)<\/td>\nUS$576 million (up 44.9%)<\/td>\nAbout 86.4 billion yen<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Vietnam's share of the Chinese market<\/td>\n34.5% by volume (24,100 tonnes)<\/td>\n\u2014<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Spiny lobster shrank to US$4.6 million: the 2023 Chinese regulation that changed the export structure<\/h2>\n

Today's strength is actually the result of a \"complete swap of species.\" There are broadly two kinds of lobster: the high-priced spiny lobster (ornate spiny lobster, tom hum bong) and the smaller, cheaper green lobster (tom hum xanh) of the southern rock lobster line. Over the full year 2025, green lobster took 98.3% of the sector at US$843.2 million (about 126.5 billion yen), while spiny lobster stayed at just US$4.6 million (about 690 million yen).<\/p>\n

This skew did not arise naturally. In May 2023, China revised its Wildlife Protection Law and added the ornate spiny lobster to the list of protected species. From October that year, imports of wild spiny lobster into China effectively stopped. Even farmed ones do not get through unless it can be proven that the juvenile shrimp are not of wild origin but the F2 generation (bred individuals from the second generation on). A former top earner lost its market with a single rule, and Vietnam shifted production to green lobster, which is outside the regulation. Rather than diversifying its markets, it leaned toward a species that does not touch the regulation. As a result, the concentration on China actually deepened.<\/p>\n

The true nature of the \"standardization demand\": a buyer that presents farm codes and facility accreditation<\/h2>\n

The \"standardization demand from the importing market\" that the source Vietnamese paper (Nong nghiep & Moi truong, dated 9 August 2026) reports is not an abstract discussion of quality. Its substance is a bundle of concrete procedures: that the Chinese side is raising, in stages, the accreditation standards for quarantine inspection, food safety, aquaculture-zone codes and packing facilities; the buildout of traceability and an electronic aquaculture logbook; and the demand for approval of a food-safety management system by China Customs and inclusion on the \"list of approved export items.\"<\/p>\n

VASEP's Phung Thi Kim Thu sounds the alarm that a state of depending on an almost single market immediately becomes a risk if import regulations change. Standardization itself is a sound direction for seafood, but as long as a counterparty that holds 98.5% of exports can decide the rules unilaterally, Vietnam has almost no room to negotiate. There is no guarantee that what happened with spiny lobster will not be reproduced next with green lobster's quarantine or farm codes.<\/p>\n

Room for the Japanese market: the supply difficulty of ise-ebi, and already-organized traceability<\/h2>\n

The source article goes no further than listing Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and the Middle East as diversification destinations, but Japan has a concrete catch basin. The catch of domestic ise-ebi (Japanese spiny lobster) has thinned over the long term, and supply has not kept up with the live-seafood demand of high-end restaurants and hotels. Green lobster is smaller than spiny lobster and lower in unit price, fitting easily into a course-menu dish or mid-price-range demand. Rather than the high-end route of serving one whole lobster, it suits the food-service trade that turns on volume and price.<\/p>\n

Another often-overlooked point is that Vietnam already has a traceability mechanism. The experience of putting aquaculture-zone codes and F2 proof in place for China can be transferred as is into the capacity to handle Japanese and Korean quarantine and origin certification. In shrimp aquaculture, GlobalG.A.P. certification and history management have become prerequisites for Japan, the EU and the US, and on this point Vietnam's main crop items and cultivation techniques<\/a> it is continuous with the groundwork of shrimp exports organized there. The barrier is logistics rather than the system - the cold chain that carries them live, and Japan's strict fresh-food quarantine. For trading houses and importers that can work this out, it is a phase where they can source on favorable terms from a supplying country that carries concentration risk.<\/p>\n

A practical note for Japanese procurement staff<\/h2>\n

First, the supply of Vietnamese lobster swings in tandem with China's regulatory changes. A procurement plan is easier to read if it factors in the inverse correlation that \"the more China tightens import conditions, the more surplus inventory emerges in Vietnam and prices ease.\" Second, if you aim for live seafood, green lobster (tom hum xanh) is the realistic item, while spiny lobster comes with the heavy prerequisite of F2 proof. Third, when you request origin certification, having them submit, as is, the aquaculture-zone codes and aquaculture logbook already prepared for China lets you identify suppliers that respond quickly. The interests of the Vietnamese side seeking diversification and the Japanese side seeking a stable supply source mesh, at least for now. A Japanese company's winning path 7 success cases in Vietnamese agriculture<\/a> lies, as touched on there, in striking not the counterparty's weakness but the valley between the rules.<\/p>\n

Sources<\/h2>\n