30-year-old fisherman Le Van Sang from Da Nang’s Hai Chau District has been voted one of Viet Nam’s 10 outstanding young citizens in 2014 by the Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union and the Young Talent Support Fund.

Young fisherman Le Van Sang

Mr Sang is the owner and captain of the steel-hulled fishing boat SANG FISH 01 which is the central region’s largest fisheries support ship.  He was the only fisherman in the country to receive this honourable award.  Last November, the young fisherman was also honoured with the Viet Nam Seafood Golden Quality Award 2014 by the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

During a recent interview with reporter Ngoc Phu from the Da Nang Newspaper, Mr Sang said that local fishermen last year faced many difficulties in their fishing activities, especially as China illegally placed the HD-981 oil drilling rig in Viet Nam’s exclusive economic zone between 1 May and 16 July.

During that period, China’s law enforcement vessels and its fishing boats repeatedly rammed, chased and fired water cannons into Vietnamese fishing boats.   Despite this, Mr Sang did his utmost to sail ceaselessly to ensure sufficient necessary provisions for the fishing vessels operating at sea and make them to feel secure on their long, off-shore trips.

Mr Sang owns both fishery support ships SANG FISH 01 and DNa 90444TS which together made over 100 journeys to provide offshore fishermen with more than 750,000 kilos of ice, over 20,000 litres of fuel, and other necessary provisions over the last year.  In addition, these ships landed a total of over 1,000 tonnes of seafood products.

After buying the seafood at sea directly from the offshore fishermen, Mr Sang stores it in frozen storage compartments and then sells it to seafood wholesale dealers, supermarkets and markets nationwide.  His products have won the trust of his customers across the country thanks to their freshness and high quality.  This has helped to bring great benefits to Mr Sang’s family as well as high incomes for his crew members, contributing to stablising their lives.

Mr Sang and SANG FISH 01

This year, Mr Sang plans to build a new steel-hulled boat, to be named SANG FISH 02, which will be involved in offshore fishing and fisheries support activities.  He added that he will borrow 14 billion VND from the Hai Van Branch of the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) under Government Decree No 67/2014/ND-CP regarding fisheries development policies.

In the future, he will make every effort to build a group of professional offshore fishing and fishery support boats to supply necessary provisions to regional off-shore fishermen, and to buy their seafood catches directly from them.  This will help them feel secure whilst conducting their long fishing trips in Vietnamese waters, which will contribute to safeguarding the nation’s sovereignty over its territorial waters and its traditional fishing grounds.