Changes of farming activities to intensive shrimp in the coastal Mekong Delta have been happening as
an inevitable trend under the pressures of climate change and salinity intrusion. This transformation is
associated with high risks in terms of production and management. Thus, the study was conducted to propose
solutions for improving economic efficiency of intensive shrimp farmers. The study conducted face–
to–face interviews with 125 farmers in both Soc Trang and Kien Giang provinces. By using one–step stochastic
frontier analysis, the study showed that the average economic efficiency of shrimp farming in Kien
Giang is 89.98%, which is not significant different to that in Soc Trang (86.95%). These efficiency indexes
indicate that at the current output level, the shrimp farmers in Soc Trang and Kien Giang can reduce by
10.02% and 13.05%, respectively, of the total observed variable cost. The results also show that three factors
have significant effects on the economic efficiency, namely the number of ponds, pond size and density,
in which the number of ponds had a negative effect and the other two factors had positive effects on economic
efficiency.