Vietnam aims high for seafood industry

The government sets high targets for the country’s fishery sector, including export revenue of $8 billion by 2020.

In the Fishery Industry Development Strategy until 2020 released recently, the industry’s production is projected to grow by 8 percent-10 percent a year while export revenue is targeted to double to $8-9 billion in 2020 compared to this year’s estimated’ export earnings of USS4.S billion.

The total fishery output should reach 6.5 to 7 million tonnes, with farming contributing two-thirds of the total and catching the remainder. The total investment in the fishery industry is estimated at 57.4 trillion dong, or nearly $3 billion, in the next decade.

Industry insiders, however, play down the strategy’s significance, saying they fear market problems such as oversupply and trade barriers may still persist.

Tran Van Linh, vice chair of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), told the Saigon Times that the new strategy failed to address big problems facing tra fish and shrimp farmers and processors. Linh explained production of tra fish as a key export product has shown low cost-effectiveness, as the rising production ‘cost is a big problem for farmers. go Phuoc Hau, former president of VASEP, also showed doubt over the new strategy. “In the previous plan, the target for 2010 is to produce one million tonnes of tra fish in the Mekong Delta, but that amount is too much and exceeds the demand. Oversupply of tra fish has been the key factor that pushes down the selling price while the production cost, especially the feed price, has doubled, causing great difficulties for farmers,” Hau said.

Meanwhile, processors of shrimp for export face chronic material shortages, which force them to run at only 30-40 percent capacity. – Saigon Times

Tags: Vietnam Seafood, Vietnam seafood sector