Dong Thap province is focusing on helping fishery businesses with their exports, as COVID-19 continues to dampen foreign demand and fishery production. — (Photo: VNA)Dong Thap (VNS/VNA) – The Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment of Dong Thap province is working with the Department of Industryand Trade to help fishery businesses enter countries that have signed freetrade agreements with Vietnam as demand has fallen due to COVID-19.
The province is also examining export activities to propose solutions toministries and authorities about exporters' problems.
Due to difficulty in selling their harvests, farmers are incurring losses of 1,000-6,500VND (0.04 – 0.28 USD) per kilo of fish.
Huynh Tat Dat, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment, said that COVID-19 is affecting shark catfish exports, with theprice of raw catfish around 18,000-18,500 VND per kilo, which is 4,500 VND lessthan the same period last year.
The price may not improve in the second quarter of the year.
Most processing businesses are using much of their cold storage because rawmaterial sources remain abundant with fewer exports.
Fishling production is also facing difficulties due to slow consumption ofcommercial shark catfish, which has reduced the price of fishlings. Inaddition, farmers are not refilling their farms after harvests as much as theyusually do.
The price of snake heads has dropped to 24,000-25,000 VND, which is 12,000 VND cheaperyear-on-year.
The province has 4,000 hectares of land for fisheries, mainly shark catfish,snakehead and red tilapia. There are 20 fishery processing businesses in DongThap, providing jobs for around 21,000 workers./.
VNA
