Over recent years, the fishing industry in Da Nang’s Thanh Khe District has focussed on building more high-capacity fishing vessels.  This has encouraged more deep sea fishing trips to Viet Nam’s territorial waters to fully tap the national fisheries resources, and to combine this with protecting the national sovereignty over its sea and islands.

A local large deep sea boat

Over the past decade, the district’s authorities have encouraged its fishermen to build new vessels, or to upgrade their existing ones, to withstand strong winds and high waves at sea. 

As recently as 2006, the district had hundreds of small-capacity fishing boats and coracles which were mainly involved in squid fishing and trawling.  In that same year, the district’s fisheries sector suffered huge losses due to powerful tropical storm Chanchu.  In detail, 10 boats sank, 20 were heavily damaged, and a total of over 40 fishermen died or went missing.  Becoming increasingly concerned about the dangers at sea, many local fishermen decided to change their livelihoods.

Today, the district is home to around 110 high-capacity vessels specialising in seine and drag net fishing, 49 of which have a capacity of between 400 CV and 1,300 CV.  The majority of these vessels are from the Xuan Ha and Thanh Khe Dong wards in particular.

Fisherman Le Van Chien said that he recently built a 500 CV boat for deep sea trips to the Hoang Sa fishing grounds to raise his income as well as to join efforts with other fishermen to firmly safeguard the country’s sovereignty over its sea and islands.

In addition to the district’s support policies, fishermen have benefited from the municipal authorities-issued Decree No 47 regarding fisheries development policies which allows fishermen to access loans for building new boats, and the national government-approved Decree No 48 on giving financial aid for Vietnamese vessels to cover the fuel costs for their trips. 

Mr Thai Vinh Ngo from Thac Gian Ward is the owner of the district’s largest fisheries support ship.  His 8 billion VND, 1,370 CV vessel specialises not only in catching fish, but also providing fuel and necessary provisions to other boats.  He usually purchases the seafood caught at sea directly from the other boats from the central region.  Then the catches are stored in the ship’s modern frozen storage areas to ensure their absolute top quality, and they are usually exported to Japan, South Korea and African countries.

Thanks to its numerous effective development policies, Thanh Khe District’s fisheries sector has recorded many positive results and played an important role in accelerating the district’s progress over recent years.

In the years ahead, importance will be attached to encouraging more fishermen to build large deep sea boats and implementing the city’s strategy to reduce the number of under-20CV fishing vessels and coracles operating in the city’s inshore waters.