Binh Thuan (VNA) - The south-central provinceof Binh Thuan has caught and bred more than 100,000 tonnes of fish a🔥nd other seafood products in the first half of the year, up 2.02 percent against the sameperiod in 2018.

Favourableweather and the appearance of a large quantity of pelagic fish in watersoffshore contributed to the increase. Fishermenin the province, one of the country's largest fishing grounds, caught93,000 tonnes of seafood in the period, up 2 percent against the same periodlast year.  Thecatches include anchovies, herring, tunas, cuttlefish, blue-legged crabs,clams and others, according to the province's Department of Agricultureand Rural Development. Theprovince targets catching 210,000 tonnes of fish and other seafood thisyear. Inthe first half of the year, farmers in the province harvested nearly 6,900tonnes of aquatic products, including shrimp and fish from 1,380ha ofaquaculture farms. Theprovince's Agriculture and Fishery Extension Centre has developed shrimpbreeding models that meet Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) standards andintensive shrimp farming. The latter harvests 14-15 tonnes of white-leggedshrimp per hectare a crop. However,most farmers are not earning much profit now because of a decline inprices, which is attributable to the expansion of white-legged shrimp farmingin the Mekong Delta in recent years. Inthe first half of the year, the province produced 13 billion shrimp fry, anincrease of 5.5 percent year-on-year, according to the department. Binh Thuan is one of the country’s largest shrimp fry producers, and thequality of shrimp fry there tops the country. PhamKim Thanh, deputy director of the province’s Agriculture and Fishery ExtensionCentre, said the province’s fishery sector has focused on the quality ofits shrimp fry. Theprovince has regularly organised training courses on techniquesto produce high-quality shrimp fry and has implemented programmesto produce disease-free shrimp fry, he said.-VNA