Funding concerns press aquaculture chiefs

Agriculture authorities are in a twist about where to source investment capital for Vietnam aquaculture development plan to 2020.

In early March, 2011 the prime minister gave the green light for Vietnam aquaculture development plan to 2020 with around VND40 trillion (USD1.93 billion) in total investment capital.

The plan highlighted developing aquacultural infrastructure and forming industrial breeding areas with key products being tra fish, black tiger shrimps, white-claw shrimps and mollusk.

Establishing three quality appraisal centres and importing cutting-edge technologies were also a must.

Of the plan’s total investment capital, 10 per cent will be sourced from state coffers, another 10 per cent from preferred bank loans, 50 per cent from commercial loans and the remaining 30 per cent will be offset by the seafood sector’s ownership capital and loans taken from other organisations and individuals.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Hoang Van Thang said the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and his ministry recently sat together to discuss how to get the plan rolling.

The MPI and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) decided to raise investment capital from foreign-invested firms under the public private partnership (PPP) form.

Vietnam Fishing Association chairman and former MARD Deputy Minister Nguyen Viet Thang said the sector heavily relied on state investment and it would be hard to woo foreign direct investment (FDI) into aquacultural infrastructure development due to low profit margins.

MARD statistics showed that only VND132.7 billion (USD6.4 million) from state coffers was injected into the seafood sector in 2010, meeting 10 per cent of the actual demands. Meanwhile, the FDI amount flowing into the sector development in the same year accounted for less than 1 per cent of the country’s total.

Scores of seafood development projects and programmes were unveiled in the past decade. However, many remain on the drawing board due to capital shortages.

To tackle the situation, according to Thang seafood producers and exports should be encouraged to jointly invest in building aquacultural infrastructure, particularly in aquacultural areas expansion.

“To persuade seafood producers and exporters to pump capital into seafood infrastructure the state needs to present special investment preferences,” Thang said.

He said industrial and export processing zones have long benefited from state support, while little was given businesses building seafood infrastructure.

The seafood sector reportedly needs to source VND24.690 trillion (USD1.19 billion) for seafood processing from now to 2020 besides the VND40 trillion put into aquacultural development. – Dantri

Tags: Aquaculture