VietNamNet Bridge – This year’s favorable weather is believed to support fishermen. However, the fishing boats of the big groups in the sea city of Hai Phong still have been staying ashore because the ship owners cannot find seamen.

Ship owners have been moving heaven and earth these days to look for the seamen to improve their crew to prepare for the offshore fishing trips. A fishing boat with the big capacity of 500 CV, would need some 25-30 skilful workers.

In Thuy Nguyen district, Lap Le, the biggest fishing group, is experiencing gloomy days. Vu Van Cu, Head of the group complained that up to 90 percent of the fishing boats stayed ashore the last fishing crop, while the other 10 percent of boats have been operating at a moderate level. As a result, only several tons of fishes were caught, just equal to 20 percent of the last year’s output.

Cu said the group now prepares for the next fishing crop, but he cannot see any improvement.

The group has nearly 500 fishing boats with the capacity of 40 CV at minimum, including the 300 most powerful ships with the capacity of 90 CV and higher.

Fishing boats have been seen close together at the Mat Rong fishing port in Lap Le commune of Thuy Nguyen district, while there has been no sign showing that they are going to the open sea.

Bui Van Nam, the owner of the HP 90198-TS ship, said he has been managed to find seamen to prepare for the upcoming trips.

“The fuel price is on the rise, the fishing field has been narrowed, and the fishing output has decreased, while we lack capital to upgrade the boats. There are so many difficulties. But the biggest difficulty is that I cannot find experienced sailors,” he complained.

Another boat owner confirmed that it’s very difficult to find local seamen and he has been looking for them in other localities.

“Fishermen have become “more valuable,”’ he said. “In general, I have to pay them VND3-7 million dong before the departure time. But in some cases, they still tried to escape from the promised trips,” he added.

Experts have noted that the capital shortage, plus the lack of experienced fishermen both have led to the sharp decreases in the fishing industry. With the existing problems, fishermen dare not go far to the open sea. Inshore fisheries bring 70 percent of the total output, which have low economic value.

As the fishing boats stay ashore, the fishing sources have become limited; the seafood prices have been fluctuating every day. Nguyen Thi Mien, a merchant specializing in collecting fishes at the Mat Rong port, said the cuttle fish price has been increasing rapidly.

A fisherman said that it costs tens of billions dong to run a high capacity fishing boat. Every trip to the open sea would cost hundreds of millions of dong.

Bui Van Nam said fishermen have fallen into dilemma. “If we go fishing, we may incur big losses. If we don’t, we would have to leave the billions of dong injected in the fishing boats ashore,” he explained.

Here in the sea city of Hai Phong, a lot of laborers have given up fishing and gone working for industrial factories. A lot of ship owners don’t have capital to upgrade the boats and go fishing ashore. They have to sell the boats and shift to other kinds of businesses, leaving the fishermen jobless.

DDDN