Phạm Văn Thiều, Chairman of Cà Mau Province People’s Council, delivers a speech at the opening ceremony of the 2025 Cà Mau Crab Festival on November 16. —VNA/VNS Photo

CÀ MAU — The 2025 Cà Mau Crab Festival opened on the evening of November 16 at the southernmost province of Cà Mau, featuring a wide range of activities designed to elevate the Cà Mau Crab brand in domestic and international markets.

The second edition of the festival themed “The Scent of the Forest, the Taste of the Sea”, is aimed at promoting Cà Mau’s culture, tourism, cuisine and people, and showcase the potential and strengths of the crab industry.

It includes a trade fair showcasing OCOP (One Commune, One Product) items, startup projects, innovative products, and special cuisine featuring crab and other regional specialties across over 270 stalls.

It also features many cultural, sports, and tourism activities such as the first expanded Cà Mau Southern Amateur Music Festival and the Cà Mau Marathon.

Speaking at the opening ceremony, Phạm Văn Thiều, Chairman of the People’s Council, said that the festival is a unique cultural, economic, and tourism event that carries deep significance in honouring the value of the Cà Mau crab specialty.

Cà Mau crab, nurtured by nature in a typical mangrove ecosystem, has become a famous brand, trusted and loved by domestic and foreign consumers, Thiều said.

The fishery sector is the province’s major economic pillar, making important contributions to growth, export turnover, and local livelihoods, he said.

In this sector, Cà Mau crab leads the country in terms of output with over 36,000 tonnes per year, he said.

He affirmed that the combined shrimp-crab-fish farming models under the mangrove forest have proven to be a sustainable approach, bringing economic efficiency and contributing to the protection of a sustainable ecological environment.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Trần Thanh Nam said Cà Mau crab is regarded as a product with high nutritional value, firm meat, and sweet flavour, making it popular in both domestic and international markets.

With the largest farming scale in the country, covering over 365,000 hectares or 78 per cent of the total area in the country, Cà Mau is titled “Việt Nam’s Crab Capital”,  providing sustainable livelihoods for tens of thousands of local households, Nam said.

He urged the province to focus on exploiting the potential for aquaculture, fishing, and seafood processing as well as develop seaports, logistics, maritime services, and ecological and marine tourism.

Leaders of Cà Mau Province visit the 2025 Cà Mau Crab Festival being held from November 16-22. — VNA/VNS Photo

Within the framework of the festival, the province will organise the “Hello Cà Mau” event which will take place from November 18 to 22 in HCM City.

The event, themed “Unleashing Potential, Shaping the Future”, will feature the Cà Mau Crab Culinary Festival, an investment, trade, and tourism promotion conference and a communications programme to promote the image of Cà Mau Province across press outlets, digital platforms, and social networks.

The festival will run until November 22. — VNS