Report meeting with NAQUA and perspectives

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Brief report of the discussions between Yanub Investment and its partners Giant Bio Technology & SIMARIS Advisory with NAQUA

YANUB Investment Company, as a leading investment solutions provider is committed to driving operational excellence and aligning with the transformative goals of Saudi Vision 2030. In this context, the group was associated recently in a strategic alliance with the companies Giant Bio Technology from Taiwan and SIMARIS Advisory based in the UAE but acting in the GCC region to contribute actively to the aquaculture sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Through its efforts to develop and localize promising technologies in the field of healthy food security Yanub Investment company and its partners were honored to participate under a common booth in the Saudi International Fisheries Exhibition ‘SIMEC Expo’ held from 4 to 6 February 2024.

During the SIMEC Expo several discussions with NAQUA responsibles all from the Shrimp Business Unit (SBU) were very fruitful. NAQUA is far the largest Aquaculture company in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and also among the largest Aquaculture operations in the world. NAQUA produces ~40 k tons of whiteleg shrimp (Litopenaeus vannamei) in ~500 semi-intensive aquaculture ponds. We consider that NAQUA and mainly the SBU to be our most appropriate partner.

– From left to wright Mrs. Eliza Lin, CEO of Giant Bio Technology, Prof. Hanjia Lin NTOU & co-founder of Giant Bio Technology, Mr Jairo Llanos, Director Shrimp Business Unit, NAQUA, Prof. Sami Souissi, co-founder & Executive Director of SIMARIS Advisory, Mr Riyadh Alnasar Chairman of Yanub Investment Company, Mr Medimi Pradeep Kumar, Head of Culture (Water & Animal), SBU-NAQUA, Dr. C. Regunathan, Head Hatcheries, CBU- NAQUA.

 

Objectives of the different discussions and interactions with SBU-NAQUA team

During the different discussion in the booth hold by Yanub Investment and his partners, we aimed to present the solid and innovative technology ‘Herbmetodcin’ developed by Giant Bio and its application in the field of aquafeed with a focus on the great success of the company to enter the shrimp market in Taiwan, China and Vietnam and propose a full package of solutions to help farmers in improving their performances and removing totally the use of antibiotics and other chemical solutions in their practices.

The recent success of Giant Bio Technology in the field of shrimp feed in Vietnam was obtained by an active collaboration with a feed producer in Vientnam Uni-President that controls 10 to 15% of the whole market with ~100,000.00 tons of shrimp production per year. Currently all shrimp feed products used by Uni-President in Vietnam contains Giant Bio feed additives formulations. The company Uni- President very satisfied by the great results obtained during 2023 is reinforcing its collaboration with Giant Bio Technology by increasing the command of its shrimp formulations by at least 15% and using other kits solutions developed by Giant Bio Technology of fast, robust and easy use in the field to monitor, detect and prevent pathogen outbreaks in shrimp farms.

Yanub Investment and its partners are aiming to develop a similar success story in Saudi Arabia by targeting a strategic collaboration with NAQUA being a leader in shrimp production and aquaculture in the country. The partnership could have two visions representing two time scales:

  1. Short term: create all conditions to realize field tests of the ready to go to market shrimp feed additives formulations developed and optimised by Giant Bio during the last 5 years. During the field test the ready to use kits can be also tested and the possible problems encountered by in the aquaculture ponds can be also discussed.
  2. Medium and long-term: make an adequate agreement or MOU so both teams can screen all possibilities of collaboration in the whole life cycle of shrimps produced in NAQUA. Giant Bio started developing new products adapted to early stages of shrimp and can develop similar products with Naqua. Also the optimization of the formulation of the feed additives developed by Giant Bio can be optimized to the Red Sea conditions, the seasonality encountered after getting a feedback from the experienced team of the SBU. Finally, any still existing bottleneck in terms of biosecurity of the site, increasing the productivity of the farm and the harvesting of shrimps according to the needs of the clients could be involved in this framework.

Key decisions and perspectives after the different discussions

As a first direct contact between the different parties, each participant presented briefly its background and the objectives of its company in the framework of the common project led in Saudi Arabia.

SBU of NAQUA would like to initiate a collaboration and seek for further discussions to prepare the best conditions of making a field trial of the Giant Bio products.

This brief report is aimed to be a starting point to elaborate further the potential of this collaboration. We are looking for the next steps and interaction to discuss all technical, logistic and operational details to prepare this emerging and promising collaboration.