According to an aquaculture official white-leg shrimp has high export potential. Vu Dung, head of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Aquaculture Cultivation Department, said the country is favoured with low production costs and high productivity while global demand for small-sized white-leg shrimp is high. The cost of breeding the crustacean is currently around VND30,000 a kilogramme, or just half that of black tiger shrimp.
Official figure shows that white-leg shrimp sells in markets in the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta for VND60,000-80,000 a kilogramme, up by VND10,000-20,000 last month, the highest in the last two years. VASEP informed that breeders earn a profit of VND130-150 million per ha at these prices, according to the Viet Nam Association of Seafood Exporters and Processors (VASEP). It is true that black tiger shrimp remains the key export item for the seafood sector, export of white-leg shrimp is expected to increase significantly, reaching US$500-600 million this year, due to its low price, experts said.
It is told that Japan, Vietnam’s largest shrimp importer, is ready to raise the proportion of white-leg shrimp in its total shrimp import to 18 percent this year. In the US, the world’s largest white-leg shrimp importer, it accounts for 28 percent of all shrimp import. Vietnam is now considering expanding white-leg shrimp farming to boost the export as well as local business.
