Building new fishing vessels according to Decree 67/CP - Difficulty accessing capital

(Baonghean.vn)-Following the working program in Nghe An, on the morning of March 25, the National Assembly Standing Committee's Supervisory Delegation led by Comrade Nguyen Duc Hien - Member of the National Assembly Standing Committee, Head of the National Assembly's Petition Committee, had a working session with the People's Committee of Dien Chau district on resolving difficulties in production and fishermen's lives. Also attending the working session were representatives of the Provincial National Assembly Delegation, the Department of Aquatic Resources Protection, and the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Ms. Hoang Thi Huong - Vice Chairman of Dien Chau District People's Committee spoke at the meeting

Dien Chau has a coastline of over 25km, mainly flat, with 1 estuary and 8 coastal communes. The total number of fishing boats in the district is 1,406, of which 135 are boats with a capacity of over 90 CV, accounting for 9.6%, 464 are boats with a capacity of 20-90 CV, accounting for 33%, and 807 are boats under 20 CV, accounting for 57.3%, mainly concentrated in 2 communes of Dien Ngoc and Dien Bich. The average income of fishermen is about 20-25 million VND/person/year. The average income of workers specializing in fishing on boats is about 5-6 million VND/person, and workers on shore are 3-4 million VND/month depending on the season.

In addition to the support policies of the Central and the province, since 2013, the district has had a policy to support new fishing boats over 90 CV with a rate of 20 million VND/boat in 2 years. Thanks to that, up to now, there have been 40 more boats over 90 CV. In addition, the district also cares about and supports the establishment of maritime militia platoons and fishing unions.

Comrade Nguyen Duc Hien - Head of the National Assembly's People's Aspirations Committee, Head of the Supervisory Delegation spoke

The current difficulty is that although there is Cua Lach in the area, it is often silted up, causing obstacles and accidents for passing boats, especially for boats with a capacity of 90CV or more. The fleet with a capacity of 20-72CV working in the snail and shrimp pounding business faces many difficulties due to daily labor, increasingly depleted offshore exploitation, and crop failures; fishermen's access to bank loans to build new fishing boats according to Decree 67 is facing many difficulties (the whole district has 7 households registered to build new boats but only 1 household has switched to building wooden boats and has access to the Bank but has not received the disbursement yet), fishing logistics services are still poor; salt workers have unstable incomes...

At the meeting, the leaders of Dien Chau district proposed to the monitoring delegation a number of issues such as: specific solutions for banks to seriously implement Decree 67 of the government so that the state's policies can truly become a lever for fishermen; support solutions to upgrade and clear the Lach Van estuary to ensure safety for incoming and outgoing ships...

Leaders of Dien Chau district's agricultural department reported on the production situation and life of fishermen in the area.

Overview of the working session

Concluding the meeting, comrade Nguyen Duc Hien highly appreciated the efforts of Dien Chau district in solving the difficulties of fishermen, especially the issuance of a separate support policy for fishermen building new boats. At the same time, he suggested that the district have specific solutions to develop fishing logistics services; train human resources (captains, chief engineers, crew members, etc.); support job conversion, and pay more attention to the lives of salt farmers. Regarding the recommendations and proposals of the district, the monitoring team recorded and synthesized them to submit to the National Assembly Standing Committee for the government to consider and resolve.

This afternoon, the delegation conducted a survey of the actual lives of fishermen in some coastal communes in the district.

Khanh Ly