Types of resources in the South China Sea

Besides its strategically important location in international maritime trade, as mentioned in the previous installment, Vietnam's East Sea is also considered to be rich in resources.

+ Regarding marine resources: with a sea area stretching across 16 latitudes, Vietnam's sea is considered to have a high level of biodiversity. Traditionally, Vietnam's sea area is divided into coastal zones (sea areas with a depth of 30 meters or less for the Gulf of Tonkin, the East and Southwest regions, and 50 meters for the Central region) and offshore zones.

+ Biological resources: Vietnam's seas are located in the tropical monsoon region, and the marine fish fauna belongs to the Indo-Western Pacific fauna. Therefore, Vietnamese marine fish are very diverse and abundant in species composition, and also possess characteristics of tropical marine fish, mainly with lengths under 200 mm and relatively short life cycles. To date, approximately over 2,000 fish species have been identified, of which about 100 species have high economic value.

+ Plant resources: Vietnam's seas are also rich in plant resources, especially seagrass and mangrove forests. Mangrove forests cover approximately 150,000 hectares along the coast, along with estuaries of special ecological significance.

+ Mineral resources: The East Sea is rich in mineral resources, with oil and gas becoming a key industry for Vietnam. The total estimated geological reserves of oil and gas on the entire Vietnamese continental shelf are approximately 10 billion tons of oil equivalent, with exploitable reserves of about 2 billion tons. By 2007, Vietnam had 57 oil and gas exploration and exploitation contracts in various forms. Besides oil and gas, there are other resources such as coal, iron ore, titanium, granite, and salt resources.

+ Tourism resources: Vietnam's seas and coastal areas are strategically important for tourism development. Along with world-famous bays that are World Natural Heritage sites, national parks, biosphere reserves, and beautiful beaches, they create enormous potential for tourism and job creation.

+ Maritime transport resources: with a long coastline and diverse topography, including 90 large ports managed by the central and local governments (not including fishing ports), the total port throughput capacity is 35 million tons/year, and it is possible to build a system of 3 interconnected seaports with a total capacity of over 500 million tons/year.

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