(vasep.com.vn) Thanks to many rivers and long coast, Tien Giang province has advantages to produce and trade many kinds of ornamental fish. However, local farmers are hard to develop the sector.
Starting to farm ornamental fish since 1980, the province has 70 producing facilities, mainly in My Tho city of the province. These facilities supply over 20 kinds of ornamental fish but one third of which are in high demand.
Among annual supply of 3 million piecies of ornamental fish, ornamental fish with high value (Discus fish, butterfly cichlid, gold fish) accounted for 50 percent (from 15 percent in 2007). The rest is low-value species.
The province mainly rears freshwater ornamental fish and supply them to dealers in Ho Chi Minh city. Facilities in the province mainly on the small scale find hardships to meet the global market demands.
In coming time, demand for ornamental fish will be increasingly high because income of people in urban areas is rising. Vietnam's accession to WTO also helps expand further markets for the country's ornamental fish sector.
If there are good planning, further investment in infrastructure, incentive policies in capital and market information, ornamental fish sector in Tien Giang province will be developed rapidly.