Gone fishing

January 12, 2011 | 18:34

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A Norwegian fish farming company has signed a deal with the Vietnamese fish feed firm Anova Corporation to create a joint venture in Vietnam focused on producing feed for farmed pangasius.

According to the deputy managing director of Ewos, Einar Wathne, the company will transfer $6 million, approximately 51 per cent stake of the joint venture, into the manufacturing factory of Anova Corporation in southern Long An province later this month.

This capital will be used to increase the current capacity of 60,000 tonnes of fish feed per year to around 250,000 tonnes of fish feed per year.

According to Wathne, 90 per cent of Vietnamese factories are producing feed for adult fish. Most feed for baby fish is imported at high prices. This in turn causes high export prices.

With Ewos Vietnam’s strategy to focus on manufacturing various types of feed for baby fish and to serve domestic market, mainly, Wathne expects to make fish a better product at a better export price.

This is the first venture of Ewos in Asia and “is also an important step of Ewos to enter the potential market for production of aquatic feed in this region,” said Wathne.

Also, “working with Ewos, we can contribute to comply with the international technical requirements for fish,” said CEO of Anova Corporation, David Serene.

Ewos produces fish feed through the four salmon operations based in Norway, Chile, Canada and Scotland and sells salmon to big retailers such as Tesco and Walmart with a global market share in salmon feed of 34 per cent.

Anova Corporation, formed in the early 1990s, is one of the pioneers in the field of animal health in Vietnam with six member companies and associates. Recently, Anova Corporation has expanded its activities to animal nutrition by acquiring two feed plants in Long An, one specialised in fish feed and one focusing on swine feed.

By Minh Thien

vir.com.vn

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