Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc attended a ceremony to launch the construction of a high-tech agricultural area specialised in shrimp development in the Mekong Delta province of Bac Lieu on January 30 as part of a local investment promotion conference.
The area will cover 418.91 hectares in Hiep Thanh commune, Bac Lieu city, with total expected investment of 3.2 trillion VND (140.4 million USD).
The locality has big ambitions of becoming a national shrimp industrial hub.
The area will serve as a centre linking with institutes, schools and businesses using high technology in shrimp breeding, creating a chain from producing parent shrimp and varieties to super-intensive farming, processing, preservation and food production research.
According to Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Duong Thanh Trung, after the ceremony, more than 20 businesses registered to invest in the shrimp farming area, while many institutes and schools signed agreements to connect, transfer and apply advanced technologies. The total registered investment amounted to more than 2.6 trillion VND (114.1 million USD).
He called for more assistance from the Government, ministries and businesses to build high-tech shrimp farming models to aid local development.
Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong said the area will help expand high-tech shrimp breeding across the region along with 28 shrimp-breeding cities and provinces nationwide, contributing to realising the country’s shrimp export target of 10 billion USD in 2021-2025.
PM Phuc urged the province to accelerate the construction of the area to put it into operation as soon as possible.
The same day, the PM attended a ceremony to release shrimps in a greenhouse of Vietnam-Australia Group and build a symbol of Vietnamese shrimp.
Bac Lieu has an aquaculture area of 1,290 sq.km. With a coastline of 56 km, three seaports and an economic exclusive zone of 20,742 sq.km, the province has favourable conditions to develop agriculture, fishing and fishery logistics.
Agriculture accounts for 43.14 percent of the province’s gross regional domestic product. Each year, the locality harvests about 210,000 tonnes of aquatic products, of which 115,000 tonnes are shrimp, with shrimp export turnover exceeding 527 million USD.
VNA