Vietnam’s seas and continental shelf cover an area nearly triple to its land and are rich in natural resources, especially seafood, oil, clean energy and tourism, etc. According to some reports, Vietnamese seafood reserve is estimated at 32.5 billion ton with 86% being fishes of different kinds. In recent years, annual seafood output has reached over 2 million ton contributing to raising the aqua fishery’s export turnover of the country to over USD 6 billion per year. Notable, fishes in Vietnam’s sea spawn all year round and gather into schools making up huge fishing grounds both inshore and offshore with over 2,000 species of fishes, including some of high value. This is an important condition making the country a potential leading seafood producers of the world.
Natural gas and oil is also one of the important resources in Vietnam’s seas. According to some geological – geophysical reports, there are many big sedimentary basins containing oil in Vietnam’s continental shelf such as: Phu Khanh, Cuu Long, Nam Con Son, Ma Lai – Tho Chu, Tu Chinh – Vung May and Truong Sa – Hoang Sa. Of those, Cuu Long basin has the larges oil reserve. Oil reserve in Vietnam’s continental shelf is estimated at 10 billion ton of oil and 3,000 billion m3/year. This reserve ensure the stable annual growth in oil exploration of our country from 1 million ton in 1988 to 23,34 million ton in 2010. Thereby, oil has become a leading economic industry with top export turnover in a number of years. Besides, Vietnam’s seas also have huge potential for methane hydrate (gas hydrate). This is a highly efficient, clean energy and can potentially replace fossil fuel in the future. Realizing the importance of this fuel, in 2010, Prime Minister has issued the Decision 796/QĐ-TTg on approving “Program on studying and surveying the potential of gas hydrate in Vietnam’s sea and continental shelf”.
Vietnam’s seas are open and lie in the tropical belt of the northern hemisphere. Therefore, it both gets much solar radiation and suffers from tropical monsoon climate. This brings the country a huge source of clean energy, particularly wind power, solar energy, tidal power to develop its industry and serve civil life. On the other hand, due to the geological creation, limestone mountains stretch into the sea making breathtaking natural landscapes with gulfs, beaches, caves, islands of big and small size connected with each other into attractive eco-systems. These bring huge potentials for the development of the tourist industry. Besides, a number of important international sea lines of communication run through the country’s sea together with its deep and closed bays bring about great opportunities for developing sea transportation and external exchange.
With the above potentials, Vietnam’s seas and continental shelf have played an immense role in the cause of national construction and defence. However, they are also a source of instability as always being targets of foreign occupation. This requires us to raise our vigilance; fulfill our role and responsibility in protecting the sea and island sovereignty in parallel with promoting maritime research to make Vietnam a powerful country benefiting from sea economy.
Van Doanh