Two fishermen in the central coastal province of Quang Ngai took delivery of their new steel-hulled fishing vessels on May 20, which were built with preferential credit from the provincial Fishermen Support Fund.
 
Each vessel has a capacity of 811CV, equipped with a GPS system and other advanced navigation items.

Measuring 26m long, 6.8m wide and 3.8m high, they can run non-stop for one month and are expected to sail out to the sea in early June.

The vessels were built within seven months by Nha Trang shipbuilding company at the cost of 8.7 billion VND (400,000 USD) each. The ship owner paid 1.2 billion VND (55,000 USD) by himself, and the rest is sourced by the Fishermen Support Fund, to be repaid over a period of 11 years with a zero interest rate.

Also on the occasion, the State Bank of Vietnam provided an aid package worth 5 billion VND (232,000 USD) for the Quang Ngai Fishermen Support Fund.

Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Le Viet Chu said the local fishing fleet numbers more than 5,500 but most of them are made of wood, which are cheap to build but have limited operation range and are vulnerable to natural disasters and accidents at sea.

The building of high-capacity steel 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.-VNA