This paper focuses on the examine how the Vietnamese shrimp industry can develop in order to become a strong competitor on the global market. From the conceptss, the author develops a conceptual framework which will guide him through the research. The uncompetitive national environment of an export industry will have a bad influence on the performance of the firms and lead to export barriers. Firms can overcome these barriers by learning from global buyers. Knowledge transfer from the global buyer to the local firms will only occur if there is a good relationship between the two. When firms succeed to overcome their export barriers they have achieved upgrading.