The company, based in Perth, has installed 230,000 barramundi fingerlings at its site in the Van Phong Economic Zone in central Vietnam.
Within five to seven years, the company plans to produce 10,000 tonnes of barramundi per year at its facility in Vietnam. Within three years, the company hopes to increase its revenue by six-fold.
Australis will continue to stock the Vietnam site with fingerlings on a regular basis as it aims to have more than one million fish within nine months to a year.
The Vietnam facility will operate in tandem with the company's US facilities outside of Boston. Working together, the two sites will allow rapid expansion of sales channels, said Josh Goldman, managing director of Australis.
"Within just a few weeks of Australis being granted approvals to operate in Vietnam we have commenced operations and stocked commercially significant numbers of fish," Goldman said in a statement to the press. "This rapid start-up was possible because we have had a professional aquaculture management team in Vietnam for the past ten months."
Last month, Australis officially received the investment licence from Vietnam. The licence approves 200 hectares for the company’s use for the next 25 years.
This February the company posted a loss of AUD 1.71 million (USD 1.6 million) for the first half of fiscal 2007-2008. The loss reflected the diversion of Australis' resources towards building infrastructure in Vietnam and the US. The loss was also the result of the high Australian dollar.
However, the company reported an interim revenue of AUD 2.8 million (USD 2.7 million), which reflects an increase of 23 per cent. The company expects to double its amount of available fish in the second half of the year.