Viet Nam has targeted up to $1.55 billion earnings from tra fish exports this year, a year-on-year increase of 10.7 per cent, said the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in a Mekong Delta summation conference held in Can Tho Province yesterday.
The ministry also said the total of tra small fry in the region would be 2.5-2.6 billion and the total yield was estimated to be 1.2-1.3 million tonnes.
This year, tra fish raising would be developed in a stable way, said Ministry Deputy Vu Van Tam. The sector planned to have the same yield and area of raising tra fish as last year.
Last year's results were also announced at the conference.
The region raise 2.4 billion small fry and harvested nearly 1.15 million tonnes of tra fish last year.
In the first 11 months of last year, Viet Nam earned $1.3 billion from exporting 600,000 tonnes of tra fish, year-on-year reductions of 2.8 per cent in volume and 7.8 per cent in value.
For the whole year, the total export turnover and volume were estimated to be $1.4 billion and 645,000 tonnes.
The ministry attributed the downturn to the high price of feed.
Last year, the EU was the biggest importer of Vietnamese tra fish, taking about 36 per cent of the country's total export turnover.
The EU was followed by the US, Mexico and Russia.