HCM City (VNA) - For the shark catfish sector in the Mekong Deltaregion to develop sustainably, authorities need to regulate output and qualityand the use of chemicals more stringently and prevent unauthorised farming, saidLe Hoang Vu, head of Dong Thap province’s Sub-department of Fisheries. 

Dong Thapprovince would push for more cooperation between brood stock producers, fishfarmers and processing firms, he said.

This year,it plans to increase the area of fish farms by 150 ha to 2,600ha and output by60,000 tonnes.

Tran PhungHoang Tuan, head of the Sub-department of Fisheries of An Giang province, saidhis province is helping farmers through a three-tier project to produce highquality brood stock to supply farms in the delta, fully meeting demand by 2025.

The firsttier involves research institutes and universities researching into techniquesin selecting high quality fish breeders, the second involves brood stockproducing centres and nurseries and the third, establishments thatraise the fish until they reach the fingerling stage.

Theyproduced nearly 1 billion shark catfish fry in 2017 –18, meeting around 30 percentof the farmers’ demand in the province, Vu said.

But manyfarmers are struggling to follow the instructions due to their unfamiliarity,he added.

Otherprovinces in the region too are planning to monitor shark catfish farming moreclosely, especially at the breeding and farming processes to ensure quality forexports.

According toNguyen Van Khanh and Cao Luong Tri, two shark catfish farmers in the delta, theprice of the fish has been extremely profitable for farmers at around 29,500 VNDper kilogramme, sometimes even rising to a record 35,000 VND. This has madefarmers happy since in the last few years prices have been volatile, they said.

But Tri alsosaid that as a result people could switch to farming shark catfish en masse,resulting in a shortage of quality fish breeds, which could affect the market.

Vo Hung Dung,deputy chairman of the Vietnam Shark Catfish Association, said the fish outputlast year was 1.4 million tonnes, up 20 percent from 2017. Exports were worth arecord 2.2 billion USD, 26.4 percent higher than in 2017, he said.

The industrytargets exports of around 2.4 billion USD this year.-VNA