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High bank loan rates have cut heavily into profits of tra fish farmers in the Mekong Delta while the price of the fish is high.
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| A boy harvest tra fish raised beneath a float in the Mekong Delta in a file. |
In Dong Thap Province, tra fish prices are VND24,000-25,000 (USD1.16-USD1.2) per kilo and VND23,000-24,000 per kilo for white and yellow flesh respectively. The prices mean VND6,500 a kilo in profit for farmers if bank rates are excluded.
Tran Van Hung, general director of Hung Ca Co. Ltd., said most profits are siphoned off to repay lenders. If the tra fish price is VND23,000, farmers earn around VND1,300 a kilo, or just 6% of the sale price, while bank rates account for 7%, Hung explained.
The province has harvested around 20,000 tons of tra fish this month, a 7% year-on-year increase, but couldn’t meet increasing demands of seafood processors.
According to local tra fish exporters, the region expects to turn out 500,000 tons of the fish from now to the end of the year, or 50% of last year’s yield.
Farmers, who account for 30% of farming area in the delta, have had many challenges breeding the fish given low sale prices and high feed prices in recent years.
Nguyen Ngoc Hai, head of Thoi An seafood cooperative in Can Tho City, said tra fish prices had risen steadily by VND1,000 per kilo weekly since before Tet, but farmers did not want to breed fish due to high feed prices and bank lending rates.
Only farming groups or cooperatives that have signed feed supplying contracts with enterprises can invest in the business, Hai added.
The delta has around 5,000 hectares under tra fish farming, including 2,000 hectares in Dong Thap, 1,500 hectares in An Giang and 1,000 hectares in Can Tho City.