The Vietnam Tuna Association(Vinatuna) was set up with 36 members in Nha Trang beach city, thecentral province of Khanh Hoa on Nov. 27.
Theassociation aims to connect and support members to develop and improvetheir fishing activities as well as protect their legitimate rightsrelating to the protection, fishing, trading and processing of tuna inVietnam .
According to the association, the sea off centraland southeastern regions has a combined reserve of 1.15 million tonnesof fish with 400,000 tonnes for sustainable fishing, of which tunaaccounts for 65 percent.
Currently, Vietnam has 10,000boats with capacity of over 90 CV engaging tuna fishing on small scaleusing, simple tools and processing, which affect output and productconsumption.
Between 2006-2010, Vietnam earned 720 million USD from exporting 208,000 tonnes of tuna.
Thisyear, Vietnam exported 58,000 tonnes of tuna by Sept. 15, garnering208 million USD, a year-on-year increase of 53 percent in volume and 73percent in value.
The association targets to net 80,000 tonnes of tuna in 2011./.