Fishermen would be given plenty of supports and incentives, ranging from soft loans to build fishing ships to oil and gas price subsidies, insurance and extra training.
This is provided in a draft decree on policies to support the development of the fisheries sector recently unveiled by its drafter - the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.
Photo: Duy Khuong/VNA
Under the draft, the Government would bear all expenses for building essential infrastructure facilities in grade-I fishing ports and storm shelters and for investing in coastal radio stations and onboard communications devices for fishing ships.
Particularly, the draft decree aims to create conditions for those who wish to borrow capital to build fishing ships to access medium- and long-term loans with the maximum loan limit of 90 percent of total investment costs, if building steel hull ships, or 70 percent, if building wooden ships.
The ceiling interest rate would be three percent over 10 years, not to mention a grace period of one year.
More importantly, fishermen might use the to-be-built ships as collateral for their loans, instead of using any of their own assets as required by current regulations.
However, in order to help banks control the flow of loan capital, the draft decree stipulates that only ship owners who are members of offshore fisheries groups or cooperatives are eligible for these credit incentives.
Additionally, fishing ship owners would be entitled to borrow working capital loans valued at up to VND 200 million a year. As for fisheries logistics service providers, the State would grant them working capital loans equaling at least 60 percent of fisheries logistics service or aquatic product purchase contracts.
Under the draft decree, fishermen may receive financial support equaling 70 percent of hull insurance premiums and 100 percent of expenses to buy insurance for crew members working on board fishing ships and offshore fisheries service ships.
As estimated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, once the draft decree is approved, the country would need approximately VND 10 trillion to realize such incentive policies.-
