August 22, 2022 — Vietnam has rolled out a plan to significantly increase its aquaculture production.
Under the plan, by 2025, Vietnam hopes to produce 5.6 million metric tons (MT) of farmed seafood per year – up 16.7 percent from the 4.8 million MT the country produced in 2021.
November 8, 2021 — Friend of the Sea, the global certification standard for products and services that respect and protect the marine environment, is pleased to announce the certification of Hai Trieu Food for sustainable fishing practices. Consequently, the company can display the Friend of the Sea eco-label on its products, highlighting its efforts to protect and preserve the environment.
Hai Trieu Food was established in 2006 in Vietnam and, after 13 years in business, has become one of the leading seafood companies in the country. With a seven vessels fleet, Hai Trieu Food specializes in processing and exporting wild-caught yellowfin tuna products with high-quality international standards.
Yellowfin tuna is one of Vietnam’s most important exports, surpassing a total annual value of more than 300 million dollars. However, as the national tuna industry grows, so does the need to protect the country’s magnificent marine biodiversity from the impact of unsustainable fishing practices.
Read the full story at Friends of the Sea
August 5, 2021 — At least 103 seafood processing plants in southern Vietnam have been temporarily shuttered due to lockdowns imposed in response to the country’s largest-ever outbreak of COVID-19.
More than 178,000 residents having contracted the virus since 27 April, with most cases in the country’s south.
April 12, 2021 — Four countries are upping their engagement in the fight against marine litter and plastic pollution by teaming with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to organize a ministerial conference on preserving the oceans through the sustainable production and consumption of plastics.
Germany, Vietnam, Ecuador, and Ghana are organizing the ministerial conference, to be held in September 2021, in line with a decision made during the first session of the fifth United Nations Environment Assembly (UNEA-5) – held virtually between 22 and 23 February – as the push for a common position on marine litter and plastic pollution intensifies among global community members.
January 22, 2021 — A severe shortage of shipping containers is leading to rising shipping costs and difficulty moving goods, playing havoc with seafood exporters in Asia.
The shortage has been felt by all major exporters in Vietnam, Thailand, China, and India. Data from Vietnamese seafood exporters show that the shipping cost to the European Union rose between 145 percent and 276 percent in January, compared to December last year.
November 13, 2020 — On a warm, cloudless morning in June, a giant vessel blasted through the still waters of the South China Sea toward a wooden fishing boat painted in cerulean blue and flying the red flag of Vietnam.
The veteran fishing captain cranked up the engine to flee, but the approaching ship dropped two motorized dinghies into the sea with uniformed officers aboard. The rubber crafts raced along either side of the fishing boat, squeezing it like a pincer.
As the captain slowed to avoid a collision, the large ship was soon upon them. The large letters across its steel hull read: China.
Crammed into their cabin for safety, the 17 men were knocked to the deck by a jolt that nearly tipped the boat. Then another. And another. “Like war,” recalled crew member Nguyen Day.
September 30, 2020 — In late July, a high-speed chase stirred the waters northeast of Indonesia’s Natuna Islands, as patrol officers pursued a Vietnamese vessel suspected of illegal fishing.
Having fled when authorities approached it for questioning, the Vietnamese crew tossed a fishing net to purge implicating evidence, burned tires to cloud their sight, and zigzagged across the water to evade capture, according to the Indonesian side’s account of the incident. Indonesian officers ordered the sailors to stop. Instead, they tried to ram into the patrol boat.
A visit, board, search and seizure team fired a warning shot into the air, but the Vietnamese attempted to escape. It was only after the team shot the fishing vessel’s platform that it slowed down and yielded to inspection, which uncovered two tons of fish.
The Indonesian Maritime Information Center (IMIC), launched days earlier, on July 22, had helped detect the Vietnamese boat by pooling high-quality surveillance data from several government bodies, according to Demo Putra from the Indonesian Coast Guard (Bakamla), which oversees this initiative.
August 27, 2020 — A new study exploring the potential that COVID-19 can linger on food, including frozen seafood, draws connections between recent outbreaks of the disease in China, Vietnam, and New Zealand.
The study, “Seeding of outbreaks of COVID-19 by contaminated fresh and frozen food,” was filed on preprint server BioRxiv on 17 August. BioRxiv publishes preliminary findings that have not been scrutinized by peer review.
August 10, 2020 — The Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC) has made public its first monitoring and evaluation report, which showcases the impact of certified responsible aquaculture.
The report, released 5 August, highlighted improvements in the environmental performance of salmon farms in Norway, Canada, and Chile, and shrimp farms in Vietnam.
July 15, 2020 — Several months into the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. shrimp market remains hard to nail down, as ever-shifting market conditions continue to make it difficult to predict where prices and demand will end up.
As early as April, experts were predicting that the shrimp supply chain would see impacts into the summer months as COVID-19 related lockdowns and disruptions hit both supplies and the amount of shrimp demanded in the U.S.