Fish Resources of Vietnamese Sea Waters and Recommendations for Rational Utilization

Abstract

Sea and continental shelf belonging to Vietnamese EEZ has an estimated areas of more than 1 mil. km², this is three times greater than land. Sea and continental shelf is becoming an important part in fishery aspect, this is where many marine products are existed. Vietnam is situated in the West Pacific Ocean and classified into four regions. The North Part, Center Part, South East and South West of Vietnam. The pelagic and demersal fish comprise of 80-90% of the total yield, in addition there are valuable resources such as shrimp, lobster and squids, all are important export items. Two major climatic seasons occur in these areas depending on the winds: the North-East (November to March) and the South-West monsoon (May to September), April and October, those are transferred months. Typhoons move from the East to the West or North-West are frequent in Summer and greatly affect the meteorological conditions of the sea waters. The fish species composition in the Vietnamese Sea waters is typical for tropical fish fauna (Approx. 2000 fish species, in addition there are 105 Shrimp species and 53 Squid and Cuttle fish species have been found). Resources Standing Stock of both pelagic and demersal fish in the Vietnamese Sea Waters are about 3.0-3.5 million tons, the exploitation potential amounting to 1.2-1.4 million tons. In the inshore areas the resources are being overexploited, while offshore resources remain underexploited. Resources protection and fishery policies are the main tasks of the Vietnamese fisheries. Fishing ordinance and regulations have become an important role in the Vietnamese Sea Water.