The Bac Lieu Province in the Mekong Delta has announced a plan to become a hub of Vietnam's shrimp industry.
A project recently approved by the provincial government aims to allocate more than VND 3 trillion (USD 129 million, EUR 109 million) by 2025 for relevant schemes and programs to help achieve the targets set for the production of shrimp postlarvae, commercial farming, processing and exports.
Last year, Bac Lieu was the base of operations for around 200 producers of shrimp postlarvae. Collectively, they produced about 20 billion shrimp postlarvae a year, meeting 40 percent of demand in the Mekong Delta and 15 percent of the country’s total demand, the Nong Nghiep Viet Nam reported in January.
Under the new plan, The province plans to produce between 32 and 35 billion shrimp postlarvae from high-tech hatchery facilities this year, a projection that will increase to 40 billion to 45 billion by 2025. The production will serve demand in the province and other localities in the region.
Viet-Uc, the largest supplier of shrimp postlarvae in Vietnam, has a major hatchery facility in Bac Lieu.
A representative from the company told SeafoodSource on 26 August the Viet-Uc’s Bac Lieu plant is the largest hatchery facility in the country, producing around 15 billion shrimp postlarvae a year. Other major hatchery facilities in the province include Nam Mien Trung and Duong Hung.
Bac Lieu had more than 130,000 hectares of shrimp farms last year. It aims to develop 147,900 hectares of shrimp farms in the province by 2025, including 35,900 hectares of high-tech, intensive and semi-intensive farming; 42,000 hectares of rice-shrimp farming model; and 70,000 hectares of extensive farming.
The farms in the province are expected to produce 249,000 metric tons (MT) of material shrimp by 2025, comprising 199,200 MT from high-tech, intensive and semi-intensive farms.
Shrimp processing factories in the province are expected to produce 89,300 MT of shrimp products this year, which will be increased to 120,000 MT by 2025. The province plans to export 73,000 MT of the processed shrimp in 2020, which will be raised to 90,000 MT by 2025, according to the project.
The designed processing capacity in Bac Lieu is expected to reach 160,000 MT per year by 2025, making it the leading shrimp processor in Vietnam.
Photo courtesy of Nguyen Quang Ngoc Tonkin/Shutterstock
