Fishing vessels at Sa Ky Port of central Quang Ngai province (Photo: VNA)The Government is expected to earmark about 10 trillion VND for upgrading fishing ports in the coming time. It blamed this fact partly on limited finances.Nguyen Quang Hung, Deputy General Director of the directorate, said most localities haven’t mobilised enough resources to upgrade ports or issued appropriate policies to attract private businesses to develop ports and related services.Small ports don’t have enough space for shipyards to repair fishing vessels or seafood processing workshops, so this costs fishermen time and money as they search for a suitable port, he noted.Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien held that problems at existing ports and shelters need to be tackled quickly to build a modern and responsible fisheries sector. This will also greatly help with the removal of the European Commission’s “yellow-card” warning against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the industry.The port system should be industrialised and modernised through upgrading and expanding existing ports, with a focus on the facilities serving the fishery logistics services, to improve food safety, origin traceability, and seafood handling capacity.Efforts should be invested in completing major fisheries centres and first-class fishery ports near key fishing grounds, according to Tien.The Government is expected to earmark about 10 trillion VND (435 million USD) to upgrade fishing ports in the coming time. About half of the funding will be sourced from the country’s medium-term capital and the rest from ODA loans in the 2021 - 2025 period.The agriculture ministry is drafting a plan for the fishing port and storm shelter system for 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050. It is also amending policies to attract private investment into developing fisheries infrastructure and services./.

Source: Viet Nam News May 02, 2022 09:38 UTC