The People’s Committee of the southern coastal province of Kien Giang has approved a plan to provide soft loans worth 160 billion VND (7.4 million USD) for local fishermen to build 14 new vessels and upgrade five others.

The financial support, based on Government Decree 67 on policies to boost fishery development , will be allocated to fishermen in the Chau Thanh, An Minh, An Bien, Kien Hai, Hon Dat, Phu Quoc districts and Rach Gia city.

Each new vessel, with capacity of 400 to 1,000 CV, will receive an average investment of 10 billion VND (462,000 USD) while owners of old vessels will be given (185,000 USD) each for upgrade.

The provincial authorities also plan to provide insurance premium support for 921 fishing vessels and 8,349 fishermen.

By 2016, Kien Giang hopes to build 95 fishing boats and 10 vessels for logistic services with capacities of 400 CV and over in line with Government Decree 67.

The building of high-capacity boats for deep sea fishing is one of the programmes introduced under Government Decree 67/2014/ND-CP to boost fishery development.

The move is expected to increase the volume of fish caught and lift fishermen incomes.

To be eligible for the programme, fishermen must be approved by local People’s Committees.

As many as 2,079 new off-shore fishing ships and 205 logistics ships will be built under this decree, according to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.-VNA