Oslo, Norway-based GenoMar Genetics has opened its subsidiary in Vietnam to provide tilapia fingerlings to local farmers.
GenoMar operates tilapia-breeding centers in Norway, Latin America, the Philippines, and Malaysia.
The company is constructing its first hatchery in Tay Ninh Province in southern Vietnam, and plans to have its first products hit the local market in the third quarter of this year.
GenoMar Genetics has said it also plans to build a second hatchery in northern Vietnam with a target to commission it by the first quarter next year.
The company said it will be able to produce 50 million “year-round, fast-growing and robust tilapia fingerlings of the GenoMar brand” per year in the first phase.
GenoMar said it will provide technical services for Vietnamese customers in order to allow them to enhance the genetic potential of the GenoMar fingerlings and improve their business operations.
“After a successful deployment of our business in the Latin America region, we are ready to gear up efforts in Asia,” GenoMar Genetics CEO Alejandro Tola Alvarez said. “Vietnam is the ‘first flag’ we plant in Asia in recent times, and we hope it will be the beginning of an expansionary effort in the region in coming years. We have been looking at the Vietnamese market for quite some time and saw an opportunity to establish ourselves as a reliable, high-quality local supplier of superior genetics.”
Vietnam currently imports around 80 percent of its tilapia fingerlings from China, according to GenoMar Genetics Vietnam General Manager Nguyen Van Trung. He said his company’s fingerlings will help address concern about supply and biosecurity issues.
GenoMar Genetics also supplies tilapia fingerlings in the Philippines and Malaysia.
Vietnam aims to produce 400,000 metric tons (MT) of tilapia by 2030, up from 150,000 MT in 2015. Its export value of the fish in 2017 rose 32 percent year-on-year to USD 45 million (EUR 37.5 million), according to Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Photo courtesy of GenoMar Genetics
