Economic performance of the gill netter fleets in the central area of Vietnam’s offshore fisheries

Abstract

The initial results of this study demonstrated that the offshore gillnets fleets in the Central of Vietnam can get high economic efficiency, an offshore gillnet vessel make a margin profit of 10%, the annual income of vessel can reach 51% of gross revenue. The average annual income of a fishing man is much higher than the average personal income on the national scale, corresponding to 156% in 2007. The offshore gillnet fishery could be attracted labour as well as investment in the future. The analysis has demonstrated that a gillnet vessel in the group of vessels with main engine power upper than 90hp has higher annual gross revenue, income, and net profit than the rest group. Impacts of engine power and hull length have also significant for vessel group with smaller 90hp engine power. For improving on economic performance, it is necessary to encourage owners of vessels in group smaller 90hp take more investment to improve vessel’s engine as well as hull length. For gillnet vessels in group of larger 90hp, the owners should not concentrate on engine power, the hull length need to be maximized correlative with the current engine capacity, the total gillnets length should be increased. The limitations of this study include a quite small sample because of the data collection is very difficult and costly in the current Vietnam’s conditions. The sample does not cover some important indicators such as the marine resources, the changing in market prices of inputs or outputs of the used models, and social-economic indicators (management ability, skipper and crew skills, education and average age of fishing men, and so on). Key words: offshore gillnet, economic performance, gross revenue, annual income