The seminar, entitled “Vietnam’s fisheries: Potential, Development and Integration”, was part of the Vietnam Seafood Festival 2010. It stressed the need to focus on human resources training for aquaculture, exploitation and processing.

Participants in the seminar said that community-based production through cooperatives and breeding associations should be applied to minimise risks and protect the environment, with the aim of raising its aquaculture acreage to 890,000 ha with output of 3.6 million tonnes and export revenues worth US$5.5 billion in 2020.

At present, off-shore fishing technology and facilities remain modest and obsolete and there remain some shortcomings in applying biotechnology into aquaculture, they added.

Vietnam now has 15 fishing grounds with the depth of between 10 and 280m and 1 million ha of aquaculture with 70 percent of the acreage being in the Mekong delta that accounts for 90 percent of the nation’s export volume.

The fisheries sector generates 4 million jobs and exports products to 170 countries and territories. Its export turnover rose from US$1.5 billion in 2000 to US$4.2 billion in 2009 and is expected to reach US$4.5 billion this year.

To create seafood products’ prestige, the seminar laid stress on the strict management of food hygiene and safety, the application of bio-technology in producing breeds and building concentrated zones.