1. Characteristics of Vietnamese Waters

        Vietnam has a coastline of 3,260 Km and the area of the Exclusive Economic Zone includes more than 1 million square kilometers. Based upon the natural characteristics of the sea areas, the Vietnamese sea can be divided into the following regions:

1.1. The Northern Region

       This sea region has a smooth bottom and so is very suitable for bottom trawl fishery. The average depth is 50 m, only at the mouth of Tonkin Gulf does it increase to 100 m in depth.

       Fishing activities have developed in both pelagic and demersal fisheries. The total number of motorized boats in the year of 1997 was 20,515 units with a total engine capacity of 391,567 Hp. The average engine capacity per boat is 19.08 Hp and the number of motorized boats of less than 90 Hp constituted 97.85% of the total number of fishing boats in the region. Therefore, the fisheries in the North Region are mainly small-scale fisheries operating on short fishing trips in the coastal areas.

1.2. The Central Region

      In this region, the continental shelf is very severely sloped and the trawlable area is very narrow and close to the shore. Thus, pelagic fisheries are the main activities in this region using purse seine, long line and gill net fisheries.

      Total number of motorized boats in the year 1997 was 25,742 units with a total engine horsepower of 653,879. The average engine horsepower per boat being 25.40. The number of fishing boats having an engine horsepower of less than 75 is 96.92% of the total number of fishing boats in the region.

     The size and capacity of the boats in this region are bigger than those in the North Region, but in general, the fisheries in Central region are still small-scale.

1.3. The Southeast and Southwest Regions

     Similar to the conditions of the North Region, the bottom of this region is very smooth and suitable for bottom trawl fishery. The living marine resources of pelagic and demersal fish are very abundant. The trawl, purse seine, and long line fisheries are well developed.

     The total number of motorized fishing boats in the year 1997 was 25,647 units with a total engine horsepower of 1,456,574. The average engine horsepower per boat being 56.79. The number of fishing boats with an engine of less than 75 Hp constituted some 83.23% of the total number of fishing boats in the region. The fishing boats in this region are the largest compared to those of the whole country and they are able to operate in the offshore fishing grounds.

     According to the fisheries statistics of 1998, the number of boats of more than 75 Hp in the whole country are 5,491 units. Of which 439 units (2.14 %) are in the Northern region, 751 units (3.08%) in the Central region, 4,301 units (16.77%) in the Southeast and Southwest Regions. This shows that the fisheries in the Southern Provinces are more developed than in the Central and Northern provinces .

1.4. The Offshore Area of the Vietnamese Eastern Sea Waters

     Generally, this is a very deep area where the fisheries targeted are the pelagic fish and ocean squid species. The main fisheries for these target species are purse seine, long line and squid jigging.

       2. Living Marine Resources in Vietnamese Sea Waters

      According to the previous surveys 1, 145 fish species have been identified (Pham Thuoc, 2000) in the Vietnamese waters in which 50 species considered to be the commercially important species. The total biomass was estimated about of 3.0 - 3.5 million tons and total allowable catch was 1.2 - 1.3 million tons per year. However, the number of boats less than 75 Hp (91.8% of total fishing boats) operating only in the coastal area has caused decline of the resource in the coastal areas due to over exploitation.

      3. Number of Fishing Boats

      In recent years, the number of fishing boats have been increasing rapidly and the average engine capacity of a boat also increased. The number of boats and total engine capacity by years are presented in Table 1 .

     The number of fishing boats for each region in the year of 1998 is presented in Table 2 . It shows that some provinces in the North region and Central region have small size of fishing boats. The average engine capacity per boat is from 18.71 Hp/boat (Quang Tri province) to 30.20 Hp/boat (Quang Ngai province). The size fishing boats of provinces in Southeast and Southwest Region is bigger than that in the North and Central regions. The average engine capacity per boat is from 34.59 Hp/boat (Binh Thuan province) to 93.77 Hp/boat (Ticn Giang province).

      Table 2 also shows the number of boats classified by horsepower group, a number of boats that were capable of operating in the offshore areas were generated from south region. It was indicated that the fisheries more developed in the south.

     4. Fishing Boat

4.1. Structure of Fishing Boat Hull

      The hull of almost boats are made of wood. Only some of them with engine capacity of more than 200 Hp are made of steel. Besides, there arc a lot of bamboo boats without engine. Nowadays, wood used for building boat become rare boat and its price increases rapidly, so the Government encouraged people to use other material to build the fishing boats.

Table 1. Number of fishing boats and total engine capacity in Vietnam

Table 2. Number of fishing boats by engine capacity groups

4.2. Size of Fishing Boat Hull

     There are many fishing boat models being used in Vietnamese fisheries. However, fishermen still like the traditional models. These traditional models are different from region to region. The size of fishing boats is shown in Table 3 .

     5. Catch Productions

     As mentioned above, the number of fishing boats in recent years has increased rapidly and catch productions grew up, too ( Table 4 ).

      Table 1& 4 show that during the period 1986 - 1998 the total engine capacity was increased by 4.65 times from 537,503 Hp in 1986 to 2,502,020 Hp in 1998 while total catch was increased by only 2.02 times from 570,481 tons in 1986 to 1,151,400 tons in 1998. It means that although the total horse power increases rapidly but the total catch increases slowly. Furthermore, the total cost also increases, but the total income increases very slowly, therefore the profits getting from fishing operations would be decrease step by step.

      Taking into account the average catch per horse power per year, this value in 1986 was 1.06 ton/Hp and down to 0.46 ton/Hp in 1998. It means that the economic efficiency in fishing operations declines time by time.

Table 3. Size of fishing boat hull by engine capacity

Table 4. The capture fisheries productions by years

      Because of the ratio of small scale fishing boats is very high, in comparison with the total of fishing boats, so the fishing grounds for these small boats are only in the coastal areas. Based on estimates of some experts, while total allowable catch in the areas of less than 50 m depth is about 580,000 tons, the total catch in fact practice is 1.5 times higher than the total allowable catch. Therefore, it is necessary to reduce the fishing pressure in coastal area.The catch productions by fishing gears, Table 5 shows the catch productions by fishing gears. From this Table, we can see some kinds of fishing gears having high catch productions such as: Trawl, purse seine, gill net, long line, lift net. The order of production given by gear types for each regions are listed as bellows:

     - The North region: Trawl, gill net, purse seine, lift net, hook and line

      - The Central region: Purse seine, gill net, lift net, trawl, long line

      - The South region: Trawl, purse seine, gill net, long line

Table 5. The surveys on catch by type of fishing gears of 14 Provinces in 1997 

     6. Classification of Fishing Gears in Vietnam

There are many fishing gears are employed in catching of fisheries in Vietnam . They could divided into the following types:

6.1. Trawl

6.1.1. Beam trawl

6.1.2. Bottom otter trawl

6.1.3. Bottom otter trawl with booms

6.1.4. Bottom pair trawl

6.2. Surrounding Net

6.2.1. Anchovy purse seine

6.2.2. Luring purse seine

6.2.3. Purse seine

6.3. Seine Net

6.3.1. Beach seine

6.3.2. Boat seine

6.4. Gill Net

6.4.1. Drift gill net

6.4.2. Bottom gill net

6.4.3. Trammel net

6.4.4. Drift gill net with bag

6.5. Hook and Line

6.5.1. Hand line

6.5.2. Long line

6.6. Lift net

6.6.1. Portable lift net

6.6.2. Raft lift net

6.6.3. Lift net

6.6.4. Stick-held dip net

6.7. Trap

6.7.1. Set net

6.7.2. Bamboo stake trap

6.7.3. Stow net

6.7.4. Trap

6.8. Cast Net

6.8.1. Cast net

6.8.2. Stick-held falling net

6.9. Scoop Net

6.9.1. Man-push net

6.9.2. Powered-push net

6.10. Miscellaneous

6.10.1. Dredge

6.10.2. Spear

6.10.3. Tide net

6.10.4. Gaff hook