Vietnam’s Directorate of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has set a seafood export revenue goal of USD 7.1 billion (EUR 6.8 billion) for 2017, an increase of USD 100 million (EUR 96 million) on last year’s total.
The agency has targeted a total fishery production output of 6.85 million metric tons (MT) for the whole year, including 3.05 million MT of sea catch and 3.8 million MT from aquaculture.
In order to fulfill the goal, the fisheries sector should focus on better exploiting the country’s advantages in aquatic farming, said Vu Van Tam, deputy minister at MARD.
Tam highlighted that the country currently has about 700,000 hectares of brackish water shrimp farming sites, including 95,000 hectares of industrial shrimp farms and more than 600,000 hectares of extensive farms with low productivity.
It is therefore possible to raise the production, he said, while also stressing the need to better deal with disease challenges as well as ways to expand the market.
With regard to pangasius, Tam said attention should be focused on tackling market barriers in importing countries and on building a strategy for developing pangasius as a national product, incorporating the creation of high quality products with a strong trademark.
With Vietnam’s population at around 90 million, Tam also highlighted the need to make a breakthrough in domestic pangasius consumption, and said that the ministry would be organizing a large-scale trade fair specializing in pangasius in Hanoi this year.
According to the Directorate of Fisheries, Vietnam’s seafood exports achieved revenues of around USD 7 billion (EUR 6.7 billion) last year.
The Southeast Asian country’s total fisheries output amounted to more than 6.7 million MT, with 3.1 million MT coming from wild-capture fisheries and 3.6 million MT from aquaculture.
