On December 15, at Office of Binh Dinh People’s Committee, Vice Chairwoman of Binh Dinh People’s Committee Tran Thi Thu Ha had a meeting with Deputy Minister of Agriculture – Rural Development Vu Van Tam. The two authorities discussed on sea food exploitation and aquiculture all over the province, implementation of the Decision No. 48/QĐ-TTg by Prime Minister on fuel subsidy policy for offshore fleet.
As statistical data by Binh Dinh Department of Agriculture – Rural Development, Binh Dinh has now 7,765 offshore boats which specialize in offshore sea food exploitation, with total capacity of 655,653 CV. Their total sea food exploitation output in 2011 reaches more than 151,000 tonnes, 6,6% increase. Out of which, output of tuna is about 4,500 tonnes, 12.5% higher than the same period of last year. Binh Dinh has a total area of 4,741 hectares for aquiculture, in which 2,457 hectares for cultivation of brackish species and 2,284 hectares for farming of fresh water species. Total aquiculture output in 2011 reaches 9,100 tonnes.
Concerning the implementation of the Decision No. 48/QĐ-TTg, Binh Dinh has so far drawn a list of 1,976 boats which meet criteria of offshore sea food exploitation. Relevant authorities have already appraised and approved fuel costs for 608 files of fisher applicants with total subsidy reaches 23.443 billion VND. 249 fishermen have already access credit loans worth total 9.629 billion VND. The provincial People’s Committee will appraise and approve about 30 billion VND loans for the fishermen from now till the end of this year.
The provincial leader suggested that the central government and the Ministry of Agriculture-Rural Development should have policy of helping the fishermen build new offshore boats for the sea food exploitation; allocate budget for the province to upgrade and modernize fishing port, jetty, areas of fishery logistics services, wholesale seafood markets through national projects or programmes; assist to set up models of production teams in marine resource exploitation, in marine logistics services, in trading, processing and export of the sea food.
At the meeting, Deputy Minister Vu Van Tam highly appraised the aquiculture, the sea food exploitation and the implementation of the fuel subsidy policy for the offshore fishing boats in Binh Dinh. The Deputy Minister noted that Binh Dinh should enhance capacity of its offshore fishing fleet, primarily the tuna exploitation boats; focus on the fishery logistics services development, build up models of fishery exploitation and the wholesale seafood markets; implement well the fuel subsidy policy; equip more facilities and tools for the fishermen, etc. The Ministry of Agriculture – Rural Development would soon put the province’s petitions into consideration.
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