Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc called on the country's fish-farming industry to boost shrimp exports, state media reported Tuesday.

Speaking at a conference in the southern province of Ca Mau, he pushed for $10 billion (9.35 billion euros) in shrimp exports by 2025.

"I urge the sector to earn $10 billion by 2025 and become a major industry of Vietnamese agriculture," Phuc said.

"Inadequate high tech for intensive farming has resulted in only modest productivity of 250 to 300 kilos of shrimp per hectare; if productivity is doubled, we can immediately reach our goal."

TPP uncertainty

The prime minister said key to the development of the sector was advanced biotechnology as well as automation plus improvements in packaging and branding.

He hoped that investments from commercial banks would help raise shrimp output to reflect 10 percent of GDP eventually.

The sector was expected to get a boost from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), whose members accounted for almost half of seafood export destinations. But US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the trade deal has left the project's fate uncertain.

The US is Vietnam's largest shrimp importer, accounting for 23 percent of exports worth $520.2 million in the first nine months of 2016.

hg/jd (dpa, AP, vovworld.vn)