Two provinces in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta region, An Giang and Dong Thap, are looking to collaborate on a joint project to develop pangasius fingerlings.
An Giang and Dong Thap are adjacent provinces in Vietnam's primary pangasius-production area. The governments of the two provinces want to turn two islets – Vinh Hoa in An Giang, and Chinh Sach in Dong Thap – into a hub for production of pangasius fingerlings, the Nong nghiep Viet Nam newspaper reported, according to a joint proposal submitted to Vietnam’s Agriculture Ministry.
The proposal calls for the Agriculture Ministry to spend VND 350 billion (USD 15 million, EUR 14 million) on infrastructure development for the project, which would span an area of 500 hectares. Fingerlings from the project would then be supplied to farms in the two provinces, along with others in the region.
Considering pangasius seed a decisive factor for the farming of the species, in March 2018, the Agriculture Ministry approved a three-tier cooperation plan for producing high-quality pangasius breeds in the Mekong Delta, a project scheduled to run through 2025.
The scheme is expected to produce about half of the Mekong Delta’s estimated demand of between 2.2 billion to 2.5 billion high-quality fry a year by 2020, which will increase to between 2.5 billion to 3 billion fry a year – 100 percent of the delta’s expected demand – by 2050.
As part of the plan, in 2019, Vietnam’s leading pangasius company, Vinh Hoan, began work on a project to produce pangasius fingerlings on the Vinh Hoa Islet in An Giang. Earlier this year, Vinh Hoan’s Chairman Truong Thi Le Khanh told local media the company would try to complete the project – the first phase of which would produce 30 million pangasius fingerlings per year – as quickly as possible.
Viet Uc Seafood Corp., a top shrimp-breeding company in Vietnam, has expanded in the production of pangasius fingerlings. The company launched its own project to produce pangasius fingerlings, also in the Vinh Hoa Islet, in late 2018, supplying about one billion fingerlings to the market a year.
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