The Mekong Delta generated 850 million USD in aquatic and rice exportsin January, equal to 8.3 percent of the annual target and 75.2 percentof the region’s total export revenue, according to Can Tho city’sStatistics Office.

The region looks to garneraround 10.2 billion USD from the export of the two products alone thisyear. It currently uses 800,000 hectares of water surface foraquaculture and 4.2 million hectares of land for rice cultivation.

The aquaculture products industry targets an output of 3.7 milliontonnes to meet the demand of 198 local processing plants, and ricefarmers intend to ensure 80 percent of their crops are consideredhigh-quality rice.

Mekong Delta localities willalso increase the quality of trade promotion activities by assistingbusinesses to conduct market surveys and advertise their products inAsian, African, Oceania, European and North American countries.

Enterprises will be provided with global experience in riskmanagement during the import-export process and applying specialfinancial conditions.

They will also be providedwith 56 billion VND (2.63 million USD) in loans to invest intechnological renovation, production scale expansion, and processindustry restructuring to improve their market competitiveness.

Last year, regional localities boosted trade promotion activities inmany Asian, European and North American nations, while improving theproduction of high-quality rice for export to particular markets likeJapan, the EU, the US, Singapore, and Australia.

The region’s aquatic products and rice exports were valued at 8.9billion USD in 2014, an increase of nearly 700 million USD from theprevious year.-VNA