Vietnam’s aquaculture industry harvested an estimated 338,000 metric tons (MT) of products last month, a slight increase on the output achieved in August 2015. For the first eight months of the year, the total volume has increased by 1.2 percent year-on-year to 2.3 million MT, according to new figures published by the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP).
Despite a small decrease in the farming area dedicated to pangasius production in the Mekong Delta, output for the January through August 2016 period increased 4.4 percent year-on-year to 741,071 MT. The provinces with the biggest increases were Tien Giang with 25,400 MT (+38.4 percent), Can Tho with 98,825 MT (up 28 percent) and Ben Tre with 135,630 MT (+14.2 percent).
In the same period, the Southeast Asian country harvested 107,007 MT of whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei), an increase of 4.1 percent, and 135,844 MT of black tiger shrimp (Penaeus monodon), down 10 percent year-on-year.
Thanks to favorable weather conditions, the total farming area in the Mekong Delta dedicated whiteleg shrimp production increased 17.3 percent year-on-year to 55,254 hectares and the area focusing on black tiger shrimp increased 2.1 percent to 561,504 hectares.
Meanwhile, seafood exports from Vietnam are estimated to have increased in value by more than 4 percent in the first eight months of this year, achieving a total value of USD 4.3 billion (EUR 3.9 billion).
VASEP expects the value of Vietnamese seafood exports to reach USD 7.1 billion (EUR 6.4 billion) for 2016 as a whole, a rise of 8 percent compared to last year.
