The Export Performance Determinants Of Bac Lieu’s Shrimp To The Us Market

Abstract

Shrimp is a key export commodity that plays a vital role in the development of the economy of Vietnam in general and Bac Lieu province in particular. The foremost markets for Vietnamese shrimp imports are the United States which also accounts for a lion's share of shrimp export volume and export turn over in Bac Lieu province. However, in the latest years, the export volume and the export turnover of Bac Lieu shrimp to that market have not met the setting goals and their growth rate has also been trending downward. In response to the disappointing export performance, the study was proposed to investigate key factors affecting the shrimp export performance which are Firm’s Characteristics, Management Characteristics, Marketing Strategies, Foreign Market Characteristics, Bilateral factors. The study uses both qualitative and quantitative methods to collect and analyze data, respectively. The qualitative research is carried out through direct interviews with 4 civil servants from the Department of Industry and Trade and the Statistical Office in Bac Lieu, while the quantitative research is conducted through sending questionnaires to 300 employees from 30 shrimp exporters in Bac Lieu province. Cronbach's Alpha Reliability, Exploratory Factor Analysis, Confirm Factor Analysis, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Multiple Linear Regression were used to analyze collected data and test the research hypothesis, while Bootstrap and Structural Equation Modeling were applied to validate the estimated result. All suggested statistical techniques were performed on IBM SPSS Statistics 27 and except for Structural Equation Modeling and Confirm Factor Analysis were processed on IBM AMOS 20. The outcome of this research has shown that Firm’s Characteristics, Management Characteristics and Marketing Strategies have a positive effect on Export Performance, while Foreign Market Characteristics and Bilateral factors have a negative effect on Export Performance. The factors of Management Characteristics, Firm’s Characteristics, Marketing Strategies, Bilateral factors, Foreign Market Characteristics are arranged in the descending order of the degree of impact to the Export Performance