Fisheries Development Associated with Environmental Protection

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, so far, only 36 out of 63 provinces/ cities have started the restructuring of the fishery sector; however, their progress remains slow. The uncontrolled growth of white shrimp in many places leads to risks of breaking plans, creating great pressure on capital, building infrastructure, and adverse effects on the environment, and increasing risks of disease. The implementation, reviewing and planning of many local fishes are slow; farmers and businesses still lack capital for production and access to loans from credit institutions. Technology for raising tilapia has not had any standard procedures. Such difficulties put pressure on the development of the fisheries sector.

 

According to the statistics of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the outputs of aquaculture in rural areas, especially fish rafted on the river, have been declining due to water pollution. The incident causing water pollution in a short time is resulted from waste water of some factories. Many fishes that have been died on the rivers of Vung Tau, Quang Ngai and Danang have affected the income of hundreds of households.

 

According to experts, in the first months of 2015, the fishery sector suffered declining exports, directly affecting the incomes of the farmers. The main reasons are price, and the quality of Vietnam's main seafood export items being less competitive compared to other goods of the same type. Specifically, due to inferior quality and the competitive pressures of products from other countries, the barriers of fishery production standards has cut the exports of Vietnam in many key markets. Particularly, the market share of shrimps of Vietnam is under competition pressure from exporters from India and Thailand. All of these difficulties require managers to propose solutions to improve quality, lower costs of the products, and implement the strategies of processing seafood in the long term.

 

At the seminar, "Realities of agricultural and fisheries processing industry and fisheries", recently held by the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM) in collaboration with the Department of Agro-forestry-Fisheries Products and Salt Production, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, Minister Cao Duc Phat analysed that from May 1, 2016, the market of the ASEAN Economic Community will be formed. By then, there will be only 80 imported items that are are taxable and after 3 years, the tax rate of more 50 of these items will be reduced. Therefore, to sell more and earn higher profits, the enterprises need to focus improving product quality and changing raw products to refined products.

 

According to the project of restructuring the fishery sector, targeted to 2020, the average growth rate of the industry will reach about 11 percent per year. There have been seven preferred solutions to achieve the targeted rate, which include planning, organization, investment, policy, science and technology, market and international cooperation. Currently, the Ministry has requested coastal provinces to soon build up a scheme to restructure the fishery sector at the local level and immediately to fix problems to create favourable conditions to support business investment and develop two phases of production and processing.

Along with solutions for growing profits, it is necessary to develop the sustainability of the fisheries sector to clean up the environment. As recommended by experts of Vietnam Environment Administration of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the planning of aquaculture should be built based on ecological zoning, development of technical infrastructure, water supply, waste disposal for the aquaculture sector of industry, and intensive agriculture. In addition, investors in farming and seafood processing must focus on investment and operation of centralized systems for collecting, sorting solid waste and domestic industries; managing, storing and transferring hazardous waste as prescribed, as well as building central waste and sewage treatment systems and standardized waste treatment systems to achieve environmental standards. This will contribute to protecting the health of workers in agricultural and seafood processing enterprises and neighbouring residents.