Vietnam's shrimp industry plans to restructure the Mekong Delta value chain around a circular economy, with 2025 exports reaching US$4.6 billion

Vietnam's shrimp exports reached US$4.6 billion in 2025, up 19% from 2024 and a record high, accounting for about 41% of Vietnam's total seafood export value. According to a report by Vietnam Fisheries Magazine on October 21, 2026, behind this figure, pressure from costs, the environment, disease and market standards continues to mount, and the Mekong Delta, the country's main shrimp-producing and exporting region, is turning to the circular economy as the direction for restructuring the value chain.

On September 21, 2026, a public-private partnership (PPP) forum was held in Can Tho under the theme of promoting a circular economy in the Mekong Delta shrimp industry. Vu Duc Dan Quang, Deputy Director of the Department of International Cooperation under Vietnam's Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, said at the forum that the shrimp industry plays an important role in production, exports and people's livelihoods, especially in the Mekong Delta, but the sector is also affected by input costs, climate change, saltwater intrusion, disease and increasingly stringent requirements in import markets. He noted that new requirements are no longer limited to end-product quality; traceability, environmental responsibility, carbon emissions and sustainability across the entire supply chain are becoming increasingly important conditions for exported seafood, requiring the shrimp industry to change production methods, use resources more efficiently, reduce emissions and improve its ability to meet market requirements.

Feng Thi Kim Thu, a shrimp market expert at the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP), provided a cost comparison showing that Vietnam's raw shrimp cost is currently about US$4.25 per kilogram, compared with about US$2.40 per kilogram in Ecuador. The large cost gap makes it difficult for Vietnamese shrimp to choose a path of price competition. She also noted that Ecuador's product mix is changing, with the share of shell-on whole shrimp in its exports falling from 74% in 2019 to 44%, indicating a shift toward peeled and convenience-processed products, which is precisely the segment where Vietnam has an advantage. From the perspective of processing companies, Feng Thi Kim Thu believes the Vietnamese shrimp chain faces multiple bottlenecks, including fragmented production, unstable raw material supply, high costs and increasingly strict technical and environmental requirements; another gap that receives less attention is that shrimp by-products have not yet been developed by appropriate organizations.

Ngo The Anh, Head of the Aquaculture Division at Vietnam's Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Inspection, said that if shrimp by-products are effectively developed, they could contribute an additional 10% to 15% of value to the entire value chain. Compounds such as chitin, chitosan and glucosamine can be used in food, medical care, feed or biological products. Vietnam Food Joint Stock Company (VNF) currently collects and processes about 30,000 to 50,000 tonnes of shrimp by-products annually in Ca Mau and neighboring provinces; applying biotechnology to process by-products both yields high-value raw materials and helps reduce water and chemical use in production. The report noted that the question is how to take this model beyond a handful of companies and make it part of the entire shrimp chain; most farming areas in the Mekong Delta are small and fragmented, and by-products from processing can be collected relatively centrally, but building a large-scale collection, sorting and raw material matching system requires infrastructure, standards and a clear benefit-sharing mechanism.

The circular economy also starts at the pond. According to data from the Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Inspection, intensive, semi-intensive, super-intensive and high-tech farming groups account for only about 20.4% of the area but contribute 75.9% of brackish-water shrimp output, indicating that production efficiency increasingly depends on the ability to control water, feed, energy and disease. As stocking density rises, demand for electricity, water and waste treatment increases accordingly. A 2026 study by Can Tho University showed that electricity accounts for about 9.3% of total costs in super-intensive shrimp farms, second only to feed and seed. Biofloc, recirculating water systems, microbial control, specialized feed and rooftop solar power are being adopted by some farms to reduce water exchange, control the environment and save energy; a properly designed system can significantly reduce tailwater discharge while limiting the risk of external pathogens entering the farming system.

Le Hang, Deputy Secretary-General and Communications Director of VASEP, believes that "circular shrimp" should not be understood as a new label attached to products in search of a market; its essence is organizing circular production processes and having evidence of compliance with international requirements, standards such as ASC and GlobalG.A.P., and emission reduction requirements; this is especially important as buyers increasingly focus on the full life cycle of products rather than only the quality of processed shrimp. The report also noted that the circular economy is not an entirely new concept in the Mekong Delta; rice-shrimp and forest-shrimp models have long formed resource-use methods that follow nature. In the rice-shrimp system, crop by-products and field organic matter can be used for the next season, and rotation helps improve soil conditions, limit residues and reduce disease pressure. The Mekong Delta currently has more than 650,000 hectares of rice-shrimp and ecological forest-shrimp areas, an important foundation for developing sustainable production without having to rely entirely on high-tech systems; however, most of these models with ecological value exist at an individual scale and have not yet been connected into a chain strong enough to create corresponding value. Even in intensive farming areas, water infrastructure remains a bottleneck, with many farmers relying on the same canal system for water intake and drainage; if these cannot be separated, the risk of disease spreading between ponds and between farmers will always exist.

The report said that a circular economy in the shrimp industry is not a single technology but a way of reorganizing production, requiring simultaneous solutions to gaps in institutions, infrastructure, technology, data, finance, production organization and markets, which is precisely the space where the PPP model can participate.