Photo: Chen Tao/GT

Guangdong Evergreen Group, one of the leading Chinese aquaculture companies, will export for the first time 2,000 pairs of the company's seed shrimps to Vietnam, the chairman of the company told the Global Times.

The export deal is the latest development in the industrial cooperation between China and the Belt and Road market.

"Because of our exports, Vietnamese clients now have a wider choice for seed shrimp," Chen Dan, chairman of Guangdong Evergreen Group, told the Global Times on Monday.

Evergreen is a Guangdong champion in aquaculture, and is known for running the "National 863 Project" breeding base on an island off Zhanjiang, South China's Guangdong Province. Zhanjiang is known as China's aquaculture capital. 

Chen's company successfully bred whiteleg shrimp with its Zhongxing One breed and solved the "foreign stranglehold" problem for the vital marine life farmed for food. About 10 percent of all whiteleg shrimp seedlings in China are now supplied by Chen's breeding bases.

China used to rely on seed shrimps from foreign suppliers but a number of Chinese aquaculture companies, including Guangdong Evergreen, have developed "homegrown" breeds from foreign seed shrimps and nowadays the reliance on foreign seed shrimps is just 30 percent, according to industry insiders.

Even though there is increasing demand in China for seed shrimps, Chen noted the importance of opening up the Southeast Asian market.

Seed shrimps bred by Chinese companies are more accustomed to the Asian environment, and the transport distance for seed shrimp exports is also much shorter, giving Chinese seed shrimps a natural advantage over the US seed shrimps sold to these markets, Chen said.

Chen said his seed shrimps is about 30 percent lower than those from US companies.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) trade deal has provided more certainty on the opening-up process for the heavily guarded agricultural sectors in signatory countries, making it easier for companies to invest and trade, Chen said.

Guangdong Province is a major base for the breeding of shrimps, fish, poultry and hogs. Breeding work for a total of 17 species has seen breakthroughs in the province, according to a document from the Guangdong provincial agricultural authority.

In the agricultural field, China's investment in ASEAN countries accounted for 40 percent of all Chinese overseas investment in 2022 and China's agricultural trade with ASEAN countries reached $61 billion, ranking first among all China's trading partners, according to media reports.

Guangdong Evergreen also operates a breeding base project in Egypt, based on the mariculture of shrimp and gold pomfret, and the company helped to train over 80 Egyptian experts and create over 3,000 local jobs.

The company also inked a mariculture project with a partner from Saudi Arabia at the Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2019 to export its technology.