Vietnam will halve the number of its onshore fishing ships and boats by 2010 to protect depleting marine resources, according to the country's Fisheries Ministry on Monday.

The reduction is necessary since marine resources in some coastal provinces have shown signs of depletion, while waters near sea shores are ideal places for many marine creatures to lay eggs, the ministry's Fishing Department said, noting that 80 percent of fishing vehicles in Vietnam are onshore ships and boats, and 20 percent offshore ones.

Vietnam is encouraging a number of local people in coastal provinces to turn to other jobs relating to tourism, fishing logistics, seafood processing and aquaculture, instead of onshore fishing. Each coastal locality has several thousands of boats and ships, mainly for onshore fishing, the department said.

Vietnam produced over 3.4 million tons of seafood, including 2. 4 million tons of fishes, 441,000 tons of shrimps and prawns, in 2005, up 9.2 percent against 2004, according to the country's General Statistics Office. Of the seafood output, more than 1.4 million tons came from aquaculture, up 19.5 percent.

Vietnam has targeted to raise its aquaculture acreage to 1.1 million hectares with output of nearly 2.1 million tons in 2010 from expected 980,000 hectares with output of roughly 1.5 million tons in 2006.

The country has eyed seafood export turnovers of 3.1 billion U. S. dollars this year, up from over 2.7 billion dollars last year, according to the ministry.

Source: Xinhua