Cage fish farming in Ninh Hai district, Ninh Thuan province. (Photo: VNA)

HCM City – Although marine aquaculture provides descent incomes for farmers, they need more support in both policy and capital to stablise the sector and improve local incomes for the long term.

Southern coastal localities have optimised all available water surface areas to make marine farming a large-scale, effective, and sustainable sector, meeting the demand of domestic and foreign export markets.

In 2020, Kien Giang province, one of the two southern localities, together with Ba Ria-Vung Tau, with the largest areas of water surface and farming cages, approved a project on effective and sustainable mariculture by 2030, according to Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Nhan.

The project aims to promote industrial-level marine farming while ensuring sensitivity to the ecological environment associated with tourism development.

The efforts also encompass national defence and security in waters and islands, restructuring the sector while improving competitiveness, and raising people's income, the official said.

After nearly four years of implementation, the province now counts 3,870 fish cages with an output of 3,910 tonnes, mainly in Kien Hai district, Phu Quoc city, and a number of island communes in Kien Luong district and Ha Tien city.

Meanwhile, Ba Ria-Vung Tau is home to 14,062 cages with an average output of 7,900 tonnes each year, according to Pham Thi Na, Deputy Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The provincial People’s Committee has issued an action plan on fisheries development by 2030 with a vision towards 2045, with the target of raising aquaculture output to 23,000 tonnes per year by 2030.

The province has also encouraged high-tech aquaculture that can serve both tourism and exports.In 2021, the Government approved the project on mariculture development till 2030 with a vision to 2045.

Its overall goal is developing a synchronous, sustainable, and eco-friendly marine aquaculture sector, producing branded products to meet domestic and export demand, generating jobs and improving income of coastal residents, contributing to protecting the security of the country’s seas and islands.

The project targets 280,000ha for aquaculture with an output of 850,000 tonnes and export revenue of from 800 million to 1 billion USD by 2025.

By 2045, mariculture will become an important part of the fisheries sector with modern management, contributing over 25% to the total output and earning more than 4 billion USD in export turnover.

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien said illegal fishing has remained a headache for the fisheries sector for years.

Therefore, marine aquaculture is expected to help address issues regarding the marine environment as well as illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing./.