June 20, 2017

 

 

Besides the anti-dumping duties imposed on tra fish and shrimp by the US, Vietnam's aquaculture industry has to hurdle several other challenges to achieve its export targets this year, according to expert observers.

 

These include tighter regulations on food safety imposed by the South Korea, Australia and the EU; import duties, technical barriers set by importers; and the pressures of competition.

 

Drought, saline intrusion and maritime environmental incidents in the central region have also continued to shrink material resources.

 

Economist Le Dang Doanh said Vietnamese exporters must quickly overhaul production and trading models to deal with the risks of climate change and changing market demand.

 

"Businesses and farmers in the Mekong Delta must break lifetime habits and flexibly respond to market fluctuations and signed contracts. Quality must take precedence over quantity", he was quoted as saying in a report by VOV5 (Radio The Voice of Vietnam) as relayed by vietnamnet.

 

"Production models must adapt to climate change. For example, if a kilo of shrimp is worth 20 kilos of rice, farmers in areas of brackish water should alternate rice crops with shrimp crops", he further stated.

 

Shrimp is one of Vietnam's key export earners but it must prevail against fierce competition and adapt to stricter importer requirements.

 

Completing action plan

 

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam also said that in order to achieve the target of US$10 billion in shrimp exports by 2025 (Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc set this goal last February), the sector should focus on increased application of scientific and technological breakthroughs to seedlings, food production and epidemic control.

 

Tam noted said that this year the aquatic sector intends to complete an action plan for developing Vietnam's shrimp industry until 2025.

 

"We should increase science and technology application to productivity in the areas of intensive farming and shrimp raising using industrial methods. The current brackish shrimp farming area of 140,000 hectares can be expanded in a short period of time, and the current average productivity of 4 tonnes per hectare can rise to 6 or 8 tonnes.

 

"We need to restructure the 600,000-hectare shrimp farming area, design policies to attract businesses, organise production households into cooperatives or associations linked with enterprises, and apply advanced science and technology", Tam said.

 

Vietnam expects to earn US$2.8 billion from aquatic exports in the first five months, up 10.4% from last year.

 

The US, Japan, China and South Korea are the leading importers of Vietnamese aquatic products.