Aquaculture: Bigger supports for greater results

The program’s activities, implemented in nine provinces of Sơn La, Quảng Ninh, Nghệ An, Thừa Thiên-Huế, Bình Định, Đắk Lắk, Bến Tre, Cà Mau and An Giang from 2006 and 2010, are supposed to assist poor rural households to engage in aquaculture.

The program focuses on developing local aquaculture in a sustainable way, improving working conditions, dealing with environmental issues, managing quality of post-harvest marine products, enlarging markets, and strengthening the sector’s administrative management.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, Việt Nam expects to export over 100,000 tons of marine products and earn more than US $400 million in August.

In the first week of August, the country earned over US $93.5 million from exporting seafood, mainly frozen prawns, tra and basa catfish.

Việt Nam shipped abroad 343,000 tons of tra and basa (US $775.3 million) in the first 7 months of this year, posting year-on-year increases of 1.5% and 1% in terms of volume and value respectively.

Foreign buyers, especially the US and Japan, have recently placed big orders for Vietnamese frozen prawns, shellfish, tuna and African carp.

Japan imported 15,736 tons of frozen prawns from Việt Nam in June, up 18.2% against May. The northeast Asia market also consumed 3,369 tons of Vietnamese squids in the same month, up 22.3% against June 2008.

By Ngọc Vân