The 24th annual meeting of the Governing Council of the Network of
Aquaculture Centres in Asia-Pacific (NACA) opened in the Mekong Delta
city of Can Tho on February 25 with the aim of promoting sustainable
aquaculture.
Comprising 18 member countries, NACA is
an intergovernmental organisation that seeks to improve rural income,
increase food production and foreign exchange earnings and to diversify
farm production. The ultimate beneficiaries of NACA activities are
farmers and rural communities.
The organisation is con
ducting development assistance projects throughout the region while
providing support for institutional strengthening, technical exchange
and the development of policies for sustainable aquaculture and aquatic
resource management.
Addressing the event, Vietnam’s
Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam
highlighted important achievement of the aquaculture sector of Vietnam
over the past years.
Notably, the sector produced 2.3
million tonnes of aquatic products in 2012, including 500,000 tonnes of
shrimp and 1.19 million tonnes of tra fish, accounting for 55 percent
of the country’s total aquatic output, up 6.8 percent over the previous
year.
The result brought the country to the third
position in Asia-Pacific in terms of farmed aquatic production and one
of the world’s 10 largest exporters in the field, he said. Vietnam has
also applied updated technology and standards for its aquatic products,
he added.
Asia-Pacific is playing an increasingly
important role in the world’s fishery sector. During the last decade,
aquatic production in the region surged by an average 11.4 percent from
2006-2010. Its demands for aquatic products are also huge at 29
kilogramme per head each year. The region is estimated to consume 30-40
million tonnes of fish per year by 2050.-VNA