Taipei - Taiwanese food conglomerate Uni-President Group plans to build two more farms to supply young shrimp to Vietnamese exporters, the company said Wednesday.

The company opened its first shrimp farm in Vietnam in April. It employs 60 workers and produces 1 billion shrimp a year, according to Uni-Group. An additional two or three farms are planned for Vietnam in 2009, company spokeswoman Wu Hsu-hui said.

"After the new shrimp farms begin operating, our target is to supply 4 billion young shrimps to Vietnamese shrimp farms each year," she said.

Wu said that Uni-President was lured by Vietnam's advanced aquaculture and its low labour cost.

Uni-President also has two aquarium feed plants in Vietnam. In the first nine months of 2008, the two plants' profits rose 300 per cent to hit 11 million dollars.

Demand for shrimp from Vietnamese farmers equals some 25 billion young shrimps a year.

About 75 per cent of farmed shrimp come from Asia. Vietnam is the world's third-largest shrimp exporter, after China and Thailand. (dpa)