Cities and provinces within Vietnam that have large-scale shrimp farming areas are being urged by the country’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to adopt different production solutions in order to reach the targets set within the national action plan for the development of the industry through 2025.
MARD has informed regional authorities that they should push the building and issuance of policies to attract investment in their local shrimp farming sectors and take measures to encourage effective modes of production connectivity and cooperatives.
They should also pay close attention to environmental impacts, disease prevention and food safety, while also building and updating market databases and encouraging shrimp farmers to follow certified standards and the application of new technologies, it said.
Under the national action plan, Vietnamese authorities want the country’s shrimp exports to achieve revenues of USD 10 billion (EUR 8.2 billion) by 2025, based on a total brackish water farming area of 750,000 hectares and a harvest in excess of 1.15 million metric tons (MT).
Through the plan, the export value is expected to grow by USD 5.5 billion (EUR 4.5 billion) and record an annual average growth rate of almost 10.8 percent for the years 2017 to 2020. This would require the shrimp farming area to expand to 710,000 hectares with an output of 850,000 MT.
At the same time, the industry will allocate 30,000 hectares to rearing giant freshwater shrimp, with total output forecast to reach 30,000 MT by 2020. An additional 1 million cubic meters of cages will be dedicated to rearing lobster, with 2,500 MT of product forecast.
For the years 2021 to 2025, a hi-tech shrimp industry and large-scale eco-shrimp farming area will be in place to help the industry reach its USD 10 billion export target, with annual growth to average 12-14 percent.
Vietnam’s shrimp exports totaled 3.85 billion (EUR 3.1 billion) last year, representing an increase of 22.3 percent compared with 2016.
