Vietnam is planning to initiate a quota for the entirety of its tuna catch beginning in January 2019, according to Nguyen Quang Hung, deputy director of Vietnam’s Fisheries General Department – a part of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development – which is in charge of Vietnam’s fisheries sector.
Hung told SeafoodSource the new quota system is part of an effort to protect the country’s marine resources. It will be based off a system that was used in a trial conducted this year, he said.
“The quota is expected to be officially allocated in January 2019 based on a survey of tuna resources and the number and capacity of tuna fishing boats,” Hung said, without giving exact figures.
Vietnam’s Agriculture Ministry will study the possibility of allocating quota for other species in 2019, he said, adding that the allocation will be carried out gradually.
Tuna is mainly caught by fishermen from Binh Dinh, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa provinces in central Vietnam. The Agriculture Ministry will allocate the quota for the provinces, which will then distribute their respective quota to each local tuna fishing boat on monthly and yearly basis, according to Hung.
The capture output of tuna from the three major provinces in the first 10 months was 14,883 metric tons, down 5.4 percent from the same period last year, data from the Agriculture Ministry showed.
Tuna ranks third, after shrimp and pangasius, in its contribution to Vietnam’s total seafood export value.
In the first 10 months of 2018, the country exported tuna worth USD 541 million (EUR 477.6 million), up 11 percent from 2017, with the United States and European Union being the sector's top buyers.
