Japanese seafood processing giant opens $13mn factory in Vietnam

Located in Duc Hoa 1 Industrial Park in southern Long An’s Duc Hoa District, the factory is under Kyokuyo Vina Foods Co., Ltd., a Vietnamese arm of Kyokuyo.

As the first facility of the Japanese seafood giant in Vietnam, the factory specializes in producing crab and fish filets with workshops and machinery imported from Japan and Europe.

Kyokuyo plans to export products from this factory to around the world, including to Japan and Southeast Asia.

The factory, which was completed recently, is expected to be put into full operation in February 2025 with an estimated output of 5,000 metric tons.

It is expected that the facility needs unskilled labor of up to 800 employees.

Nikkei Asia cited Kyokuyo as saying in May that seafood businesses face difficulties due to the effects of the treated water discharge from the Fukushima nuclear power plant and growing risk in China due to their economic slowdown and foreign policies.

Radioactive water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant, although treated before discharge, still makes many countries concerned about its possible impacts on the marine environment.

In August 2023, after Japan began discharging treated water from the Fukushima nuclear power plant into the Pacific Ocean, China banned all seafood imports from Japan.

According to the International Trade Center, a joint agency of the United Nations and the World Trade Organization, the world’s five largest importers of seafood in 2023 were, by descending order, the EU, the U.S., China, Japan, and South Korea.

As of August 2024, Vietnam, with a global market share of seven percent, was the world’s third largest export of seafood, after China and Norway, the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development reported.

Kyokuyo is Japan’s third largest seafood producer by assets after Maruha Nichiro and Nissui, as of March, Nikkei Asia said, citing Statista data.