Socialist Republic of Vietnam

HA NOI (March 11, 2003)— The Government has announced plans to expand Viet Nam’s aquacultural area to one million ha, a rise of 4.5 per cent over last year.

And despite ongoing international trade disputes, shrimp – the sector’s biggest cash-spinner – will make up most of the aquaculture industry’s 1.1 million tonne production target for 2003.

The strategy was unveiled on Monday by Tran Van Quynh, director of the Central Fisheries Promotion Centre at a two-day conference on aquaculture development in northern provinces, held in the central province of Nghe An.

However, with troubles in the US market still looming, the Ministry of Fisheries expects aquaculture to earn $1.4 billion of the sector’s targeted turnover of $2.3 billion, up less than 1 per cent over last year.

A Ministry of Fisheries report prepared for the conference said that the sector will continue to utilise the country’s natural advantages to develop aquaculture, and move increasingly towards industrial breeding and processing.

Stressing the relationship between environmental protection and the sector’s long-term sustainable growth, the fisheries ministry has urged growers to obtain an international good practice certificate to improve the quality of their goods.

Shrimps will continue to be the sector’s staple product, with the Ca Mau peninsula to spearhead seafood breeding in future.

The ministry will outline an development strategy to ensure the quality and quantity of breeding and maintain reasonable prices for farmers.

Under an aquaculture development plan for the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta until 2010, fresh and salt water aquaculture areas will be increased to more than 815,000ha.

The report says the ministry will counter the high tariffs imposed by Washington on Vietnamese tra and basa by working with the Fisheries Association to tap other foreign markets, and marketing seafood more aggressively in the domestic market.

Domestic potential is particularly promising, with 79 per cent of people questioned in a recent survey indicating that they liked to eat fish.

But market observers said it was ironic that very few Vietnamese people had heard about tra and basa until they became the subject of the high-profile US trade dispute.

The ministry also released a plan to boost investment in facilities such as irrigation, a national strain supply system, and information systems to give environmental forecasts and pinpoint disease.

These efforts aim to help ensure good supplies of raw materials for the food processing industry for the whole year.

Other tasks include marketing, setting up an effective information channel between exporters and growers; stepping up diplomatic efforts to maintain and expand markets and establishing support funds.

Farmers will be given long and medium-term loans with reasonable interest rates to expand their businesses, along with Government transport subsidies for people in remote areas.

The ministry hopes to make this year a landmark for the sector.

Seafood products have been proven to yield higher profits than rice in the three years since the Government’s aquaculture development programme for 1999-2010 was started.

One ha of shrimp yields anywhere between three and 30 times the profit of rice.

Under an aquaculture development plan for the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta until 2010, fresh and salt water aquaculture areas will be increased to more than 815,000ha.

The region’s aquaculture sector expects to raise its output to 1.8 million tonnes, 60 per cent of the country’s total output, and fetch an export value of more than $1.5 billion by 2005.

The fisheries ministry has formed a policy on sustainable development of aquaculture to increase earnings from each farming area and maintain the region’s food security.

The delta will convert ineffective rice fields, including salt-affected and lowland fields, into farms raising prawn and other high-value aquatic products.

More attention will be paid to combining shrimp raising with rice growing, and measures to reduce spending on irrigation and other infrastructure.

The delta annually produces more than half of the country’s total fisheries output and two-thirds of total aquaculture products. — VNS