II. Determined to fish offshore

Fishermen going offshore for production and sovereignty protection (Photo: Internet)

Vietnamese fishermen, like other social strata, are hard working and patriotic. Fishing not only means their lives but also is their pride to be the owner of the homeland sea, to take over their ancestor’s career to improve their family lives and contribute to the country’s economy. Hence, their desire is to travel to the end of the sea border for fishing regardless of any weather conditions. For them, fishing offshore is home coming, ships are their houses, sea is their homeland since they spend most of their time at sea; fishing offshore is not only for life but also represents their responsibility for protecting the sacred sea sovereignty of the Homeland. Deeply aware that our ancestors have fought, even sacrificed their lives to hold sea sovereignty, fishermen nowadays always show strong determination to stick to the sea for fishing and protecting sea and island sovereignty.

Fully realizing the role of fishermen in protecting the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity of the Homeland and in an effort to accelerate industrialization, modernization of the country, our Party and State have soon developed policies and guidelines to promote fishermen’s role in the two strategic missions of constructing and protecting the Homeland. The XI National Congress of the Party has stated: “…promoting offshore fishing associated with defence and security”, “develop sea economy … with our sea status and potentials, associate sea economy development with defence and security consolidation and sea sovereignty protection”. This is not only the political determination of the Party, State but also the wishes of fishermen and other social strata, of organizations and forces involving in the protection of the Homeland’s sacred sea and island sovereignty. Implementing these polices and guidelines thoroughly will increase both the number and time of fishermen on sea for economic activities and at the same time for force and equipment preparation for sovereignty protection when needed .  

To date, the Party’s guidelines and policies have been proactively implemented in general: credit have been disbursed to fishermen to build new ships and renovate old ones for offshore fishing; investments have been made to develop logistics infrastructure and facilities; social welfare have been done with effectiveness. The grouping of fishermen in production has had important contribution in fishing activities, information sharing about fishing ground, weather, experience, supporting each other in dealing with risk, search and rescue, reducing cost, lessening the damage of accidents, and overcoming the spontaneousness and ineffectiveness of fishermen. In addition, other favourable policies, such as subsidies in oil, ship and boatmen insurance, health insurance, subsidies for lost and damage in case of an accident…, as well as social welfare, support of mass organizations have contributed to overcoming difficulties in production, enhancing the effectiveness of fishing activities, and helping making fishermen continue their job.

However, in regard of the requirement of protecting sea and island sovereignty, the implementation of policies to promote the fishermen’s role still doesn’t meet expectation fully. Shortcomings have made the promotion of fishermen’s role in economic development, sea and island protection fail to meet expectations. Meanwhile, sea and island disputes in the East Sea still see complexity, unpredictabilities. What’s more, the unfavourable weather conditions, high production cost, declining market, depriving of production…, have had negative impact on fishermen. Besides, fishing activities mainly take place in near seas, some even move from open seas to near seas. This requires our actions and plans to help fishermen keep going on their job and promote their roles in protecting the country’s sea and island sovereignty in the light of the Central Resolution 4 (X tenure) on Vietnam Sea Strategies toward  2020.

Part III: Concretize determination ( to be continued)

Hong Lam – Van Bay – Hoang Truong