Determinants and Potential of Seafood Trade: Evidence from a Transitional Economy

This study, by employing an augmented gravity model under the Poisson pseudo-maximum-likelihood (PPML) estimation, aims to scrutinise the determinants and potential of seafood exports from Vietnam—a transitional and emerging economy to the global market over the period of 2000–2018 at both aggregate and sectoral levels. With remarkable growth over the years, Vietnam has become the largest seafood exporter in Southeast Asia. The country’s seafood exports have been diversified in terms of export structure and export markets. The estimation results show that the size of economies and market development from importers are the main factors that are driving Vietnam’s total seafood exports. At the sectoral level, the magnitude of the effects of income per capita significantly differs among the subsectors of seafood. We find that the impacts of factors such as region, access to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the free trade agreement (FTA) establishment on Vietnam’s seafood exports are heterogeneous. We found that there is still room for the expansion of Vietnam’s seafood exports to some market destinations. This article suggests a dynamic strategy to increase Vietnam’s seafood exports in the coming years. JEL Codes: F1, F14, Q1