The workshop was held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in collaboration with Khanh Hoa province’s People’s Committee in Nha Trang City on 4th April. Vice-Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Vu Van Tam and Vice Chairman of Khanh Hoa province’s People’s Committee Dao Cong Thien co-chaired the workshop.
Attending the workshop were representatives of units under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Directorate of Fisheries (D-Fish), leaders of Departments of Agriculture and Rural Development, Department of Fisheries in the 28 coastal provinces, Viet Nam Fisheries Association and businesses engaging in capture fisheries and fishermen.
At the workshop, Vicve-Minister Vu Van Tam highly appreciated the results achieved; at the same time, he pointed out shortcomings and limitation fishing management over the past year.
Achievements
According to the D-FISH’s report, total capture fisheries production in the North fishing season 2016-2017 reached over 1.4 million tons, an increase of 5.04 per cent compared to the fishing season in the period 2015-2016. Of which, marine fishing production reached 1.34 million tons, up 4.84 per cent compared to that in the North fishing season 2015-2016. Some provinces recorded a significant increase in fishing production such as Binh Thuan (up 8.2 per cent), Binh Dinh (up 11 per cent), Quang Nam (up 7.1 per cent), Thanh Hoa (up 8.3 per cent) and Ben Tre (up 12.23 per cent), except for provinces of Quang Tri and Ninh Binh with fishing yield reducing by 40 per cent and 10 per cent lower, respectively.
This result was attributable to the fact that during the North fishing season 2016-2017, the weather was rather favorable in the fishing grounds and there appeared variety of fish in the fishing grounds. In addition, there were a lot of squids, pelagic and scads in the fishing grounds in the Gulf of Tonkin and various fish such as anchovy, scads and penicilated shrimp in the Central fishing ground. These facilitated fishing vessels to go fishing.
Challenges
In addition to increase in fishing yield, the North fishing season was still facing some difficulties. Firstly, although there was an increase in fishing yield, the fish quality and price was not higher than that in the North fishing season 2015-2016. Additionally, advanced fishing technology has not applied largely in fishing, affecting productivity and the quality of fish. Moreover, there still existed fishing gears causing harm to aquatic resources such as using explosive, electronic pulse, small size fishing nets in some provinces, coupled with illegal fishing in the foreign fishing grounds, badly affecting Viet Nam’s fisheries sector’s image.
To tackle this, the MARD has been monitoring and giving directions timely. Accordingly, D-Fish has sent many working groups to provinces to grasp the situation so as to timely remove tackles in implementing the fisheries development policies according to Decree No 67/2014/ND-CP. Besides, the management of fishing vessels has been enhanced which resulted in the fact that most of fishing vessels have been registered and granted fishing permission. Additionally, communication among fishing vessels and between fishing vessels and management states has been stable, contributing to prevention of natural risks to fishermen when operating at sea.
Plan for the South fishing season 2017
In order to implement well the plan for the South fishing season 2017, Vice-Minister Vu Van Tam directed D-FISH to co-operate with provinces in reviewing highlight models of fishing associating with prevention of aquatic resources; as a result, D-FISH can come up with effective measures for management such as regulations on fishing season, net sizes, etc. Also, he recommended that provinces should announce soon fishing ports, shelters in line with regulations and ensure the safety for fishing vessels. Additionally, he asked relevant units to enhance combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing) and fine strictly fishing vessels violating this.
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