FOREIGN AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT OF BA RIA VUNG TAU PROVINCE

FISHERY BRANCH

Ba Ria-Vung Tau sea area belongs to the Eastern sea of the south of Vietnam with warm water, plane sea bed and large area (over 100,000 kilometer square), with a lot of estuaries and arroyos, therefore abundant in sea products species. It is not usually affected by monsoons. Depending on monsoons blowing from the North East or the South East, ships and boats may take shelter in the Southwest of Con Dao District, in the Northeast of Southeast of Phu Quoc Island, in Ne Cape ( Mui Ne).

According to the statistics, Ba Ria-Vung Tau sea area has about 660 species of fish, 35 species of shrimp, and 23 species of cuttlefish with a capacity of exploitation of approximately 200,000 tons per year. With an area of more than 6,200 hectares of surface water on land and in Con Dao (having some regions breeding pearl oysters, hawksbill turtle and sea turtle), Ba Ria-Vung Tau has a chance to develop aquatic products rearing and growing. Recently, exploiting sea

product potentialities in Ba Ria-Vung Tau has developed rather well. As for sea product catching, the capacity of vessels and the output have continued to develop over years: In 1992, the whole province had only 2,530 vessels of different kinds with the total capacity of 94,096 CV, exploiting 72,300 tons of sea products. At the end of 2001 (according to the statistics given by the Congress of Provincial Party ), the province has got 4,535 vessels

(in which 1,550 ships having big capacity for catching in the open sea made up 34%), exploiting 140,000 tons of different sea products, the highest output from past to now.

The area for breeding and growing aquatic products has reached around 3,500 hectares with an output of 1.5-1.6 thousand tons; especially providing shrimp breed to neighboring provinces has been developed well. As for sea products processing, the province is capable of doing well. In 2001, the output of export sea products is 18,749 tons (in which frozen processing 16,000 tons), getting 46 million dollars of export turnover.

As for the fishery logistic service, in recent years, the Central Government and the province have invested in it so much. A range of big fishing ports satisfying the requirements on logistic service have come into use such as Cat Lo, Con Dao, Phuoc Tinh, Loc An, etc.

In the near future, the Province calls for investment in the fishery as follows:

Create favorable conditions for fishermen and economic sectors to invest capital in building ships having big capacity, capable of catching in the open sea, or shipbuilding service, purchasing and preserving sea products on sea to ensure material quality for processing.
create favorable conditions for fishermen and economic sectors to invest capital in rearing and growing aquatic products according to the industrial or semi-industrial methods leading to high productivity and output, especially farming various kinds of aquatic products having export value, e.g. shrimp, sea-bass fish (Mu fish), crabs, pearl oysters, etc.
encourage particularly foreign and domestic investors to invest in sea product processing factories meeting standards of EU, USA, and Japan and in upgrading , improving old factories or invest in the new ones.
The province will give priority to use budget capital to support the investment in the fishery logistic service facilities, e.g. fishing ports, fishing village infrastructure, arroyo dredging, power and water supplying to the fence of processing plants or lens money without interest for a number of efficient sea product processing projects.