REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES SUPPLY CHAIN IN VIET NAM

REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES SUPPLY CHAIN IN VIET NAM

Vietnam Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning REVIEW OF THE FISHERIES SUPPLY CHAIN IN VIET NAM (draft version) Report for the project: “Reforming trade and fisheries policies, re-shaping supply chains and enhancing consumer demand for sustainable fisheries management” Component: Subsides & Access agreement By Pham Thi Hong Van December 2008 TABLE OF CONTENT LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS .3 PREFACE .5 I DEFINITION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN II THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF CAPTURE FISHERIES PRODUCTS 2.1 The chart for the supply chain of capture fisheries products and the roles of relevant stakeholders 2.2 Benefits and conflicts between relevant stakeholders .18 2.3 Typical cases analysis .25 2.4 Efficiency and competitiveness of fisheries supply chain 35 III SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING SUPPLY CHAIN TO STRENGTHEN COMPETITIVENESS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT .38 3.1 Increasing efficiency and competitiveness of production phase 38 3.2 Increasing efficiency and competitiveness of processing phase .39 3.3 Developing service models to ensure the transparence of price and food quality 40 3.4 Promoting activities in ensuring consumer right 40 3.5 Promoting management activities and adjustment of government in supply chain of capture products 41 3.6 Promoting communicated atctivities, improving awareness on commercial barriers, food safety and hygiene, product labeled, sustainable product cerification, for all stakeholders participating in supply chain of marine products including consumers .42 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS 44 REFERENCES 45 LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS MARD Ministry of Development MOFI (Former) Ministry of Fisheries DANIDA Danish International Development Agency VIFEP Vietnam Institute of Fisheries Economics and Planning WTO World Trade Organization FAO Food and Agriculture Organization Agriculture and Rural Executive sumary Vietnam fisheries characterized by small-scale fisheries with estimates about 80% of fishing fleet and catch The report provides the overview of fisheries supply chain in Vietnam with the focus given to the case study of anchovy, and squid in Binh Thuan province The analysis emphasize on nature of supply chain, strengths and weakness of the chain as well as the recommendations for improvement of the chain by enhancing the collaboration/cooperation not only among small-scale fisheries but also among producers-middle-men and processors The report also indicates that the middle-men are the most benefited and lowest risk burden actors in the chain but indispensable To improve the chain, under the context of smallscale fisheries it not mean the interventions of government should eliminate the middle-men just due to its exploitation to the fishers, but the reform policies should be provide toward the fact that facilitating the supply chain function more efficient by provide market information and services to improve the food safety and sustainability of the supply chain for better practices PREFACE Consumption is an important link in the production process Through consumption, the PRODUCTS are converted into MONEY and create PROFITS for producers, processing companies and traders Due to the typical characteristics of the fisheries products and fisheries production in Viet Nam, especially the characteristics of the fisheries products such as the fresh, easy to be rotted; the products are catched in the offshore areas; the production and trading are small scale, in the forms of family scale Therefore, the fisheries sector in general and the capture fisheries sub-sector in particular are the economic sector, which have diverse and effervescent markets for product trading The marketing of fisheries products also have to go through several links and have attributes of perfect markets Due to the importance of the fisheries sector in supplying foods for people and balance the trading between the import and export, the Government of Vietnam has paid a lot of attentions on maintain the sustainable development of the fisheries sector However, so far, the fisheries markets have not operated in the synchronized system, the product price is not stable and in many cases, the price shows the “false” attribute, creating significantly negative impacts on the economic effectiveness of the fisheries production producers and consumers The continuous research on innovation of the trading policies and production policies in fisheries development is very essential in order to develop the sustainable development of the sector With the supports from UNEP, the RESEARCH project on “Reforming trade and fisheries policies, reshaping supply chains and enhancing consumer demand for sustainable fisheries development” is implemented for that purpose The thematic report of “Assessing the fisheries supply chains in Viet Nam” within the framework of this research project focuses on the assessment of the supply chain of fisheries products This thematic report is compiled in order to present the fisheries supply chain, based on analyzing and assessing the relevant stakeholders in the supply chain and initiate the solutions for improving that supply chain in order to improve the competition ability and sustainable development of the fisheries sector The fisheries supply chain have to include the flow of both the capture fisheries products and aquaculture products The capture fisheries products have to include the marine fishing products and inland fishing products, from production to trading and processing as well as final consumption at both international and domestics markets However, the scope of this thematic research is limited within the analysis of supply chain of marine fishing products and only analyse and assess the supply chain for the marine fishing products at the final comsumption phase with both domestic and export products To conduct this research, the following basic study methodologies have been applied: - Mongraph method - The consultation method - The typical survey and investigation methods - Stakeholders analysis method - The descrition analysis method This thematic report contains the main following sections: I The definition of the supply chaiṇ II The supply chain of marine fishing products 2.1 The chart of the supply chain for marine fishing products and the roles of relevant stakeholders 2.2 Benefits and conflicts between relevant stakeholders 2.3 Analyse some typical cases: - The supply chain of frozen squid - The supply chain of anchovy 2.4 The efficiency and competitive attributes of fisheries products III The solutions to improve the supply chain in order to improve the competition and sustainable development Conclusions and recommendations I DEFINITION OF THE SUPPLY CHAIN A supply chain or logistics network is the system of organizations, people, technology, activities, information and resources involved in moving a product or service from supplier to customer Supply chain activities transform natural resources, raw materials and components into a finished product that is delivered to the end customer In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain) An example of a supply chain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_chain) In each supply chain, except from producers, one member is the buyer of the previous member and also is supplier for the later member All the members of the supply chain have the same purposes and work together in order to reach those purposes / objectives Each member will contribute his / her values at the last link of the chain via his / her contributions to satisfy their customers The supply chain with cooperation from all producers in the supply chain in order to ensure that there are no value losses in the case that one link may work improperly or weakly in this chain The supply chain is an alliance between the parts of vertical linking to reach to the better positions on the market The cooperation produces values and reduces costs The customers need to direct to the supply chain as the customers require their specific standards The companies in the supply chain are independent with each other in terms of legal framework, but become dependant with each other as they have their general objectives and work to reach those objectives They work with each other for a long time and discuss and solve their problems together This is more than long term contracts The changes in agriculture in the last decades have shown that the vertical integration in the agriculture is essential for the economic successes Another reason is the increase in the demand for the full traceability of the products Developing the supply chain is a method to get the vertical integration in order to combine several individual links to work together to reach the common objectives through the cooperation and dependence with each other while maintaining their independence The common objectives will maximize the values of all parts in the supply chain One supply chain with the fully vertical integration will improve quality, increase effectiveness, and allow creating different products and increasing profits The main benefits of the supply chain include sole marketing opportunities and the insurance for stable markets as well as opportunities to create higher values from one common market in order to oppose / against the global competition and improve the ability to manage risks It is ambitous to have in depth analyze and assess the supply chain of all Vietnamese fisheries within this short research Therefore, this research will assess the supply chain of the marine fisheries products and relevant stakeholders through analyzing and assessing the fluctuation of the product prices and relevant stakeholders II THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF CAPTURE FISHERIES PRODUCTS 2.1 The chart for the supply chain of capture fisheries products and the roles of relevant stakeholders The typical characteristics of the Vietnamese fisheries sector are still small scale and being modernized with the participation of several economic entities, so that the markets for fisheries products in general and wild fish products in particular are very diverse and effervescent If only consider the flows of products from fishers to the final-end comsumers, the values of the fisheries products are increased at several middle phases, the chart of the supply chain for the marine fishing products are presented as follows: Distributors Finalend Producers/ fishers Distributors Processors Processors Distributors consumers Distributors THE CHART FOR THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF THE CAPTURE FISHERIES PRODUCTS As the characteristics of the Vietnamese fisheries sector are multispecies and have a short growth cycle, the species catched in one haul often quite diverse, except some typical fisheries (such as anchovy gillnet, ) Therefore, normally allmost all the marine fishing vessels have their processed products or fresh products to the end customers The middle traders also have multi functions and have to go through several levels While the supply chain of the non-processed products is complicated, the supply chain of the processed products is even more sotisphycated than that The middle traders (except the retailers) often purchase the non-processed products and processed products In order to make the chart of the supply chain of the marine products become easier and easy to monitor its changes, the supply chain is divided into three phases: (1) The values of products in the fishing production phase (2) The values of products in the middle phase: the product values of middle products will include the values of processed products and non-processed products (3) The values of products at the consumption phase 2.1.1 The products flow in the fisheries production phase and relevant stakeholders In order to understand clearly the relevant stakeholders in setting values for fisheries products in fishing production phase, it is necessary to know some typical forms in organizing marine fishing production The marine fishing has the participation of several economic components, including households, cooperatives and enterprises Each economic entities has several forms of production and supply: only conducts the fishing activities, or doing both fishing activities and processing activities The prices of capture seafood are set by the two parties: sellers and buyers The sellers may be: (1) Vessel owners: including two categories: + The vessel owners are also fishers: this is small scale fishers– scale, the vessel owners hire some labours to go with them on board and they decide how to sell their products by themselves + The vessel owners are not fishers: this is the enterprises scale, each owner has several vessels, the owners hire the captain and fishers to go fishing The owner will decide how to sell their products (2) Vessel owners are fishers: there are two categories: + In the case that the marine fishing enterprises, who are household – scale, have capital contributions from their shareholders for equipment purchasing The owners and shareholders go fishing and decide how to sell their products together 10 products processing plants The business representatives of processing plants are responsible for examining the quality of anchovy at landing sites After agreements on price are made, anchovies are transferred to processing plants and transportation costs are paid by fishing boat owners + Fishing boat owners have financial relationships with middle men: The landings of all these fishing boats have to sell to middlemen Middlemen get 3-5% commission on these landing they sell to other middlemen or to processing plants On average, middlement earns 100170VND/kg of anchovies landed Normally, one fishing boat can loan 50 - 100 mill.VND from middlemen, depending how much middlemen trust fishers then they decide how much money should invest in that given fishing boat In special cases, boat owners have terrible risks and unaffordable to continue fishing, perhaps they have to sell their entire assets (vessel and gears) but not cover the loan then middlemen can relax the loan When fishers have difficulities in daily living or fishing operation, they can come and aske middlemen for helps However, business on anchovies are based on negotiation, no enforcememt was made Even this is unofficial rule however it has been strictly followed and it is rarely to see someone breaks the rule Supply chain of anchorvy in transfering phase and relevant stakeholders + Fresh anchovies products: Fresh anchovies were collected from middlemen by small traders then were sold to retailers and finally transfered to the local markets Differences in price of anchovies between middlemen and wholesalers was about 4% (5,000VND/kg – 5,200VND/kg), then wholesalers sold fish to retailers with the increased rate of 4% more, then the price that retailers had to pay is 5,400VND/kg The wholesalers and retailers are normally doing business with small volume of fish which are enough to supply for the local market demand therefore risk rarely happed to them Even in case of worse situation they can get the breakeven but not loss + Anchovies as materials for fishsauce processing It is estimated that kg of fresh anchovies of 3,000VND/kg can produce litter of fishsauce with price of 15,000VND/l Therefore, values of anchovies have been added by fishsauce processing The fishsauce processors can benefit about 1,000VND/l, corresponding to 500VND/kg of anchovies (16%) 32 Prices of fishsauce along the intermediate chains of transportating phase: price of fishsauce is fluctuated throughout the intermediate chains from processing plants to business firms, wholesalers, restaurants, hotels and also retailers etc and finally to consumers The processing plants of fishsaue rarely have risk in doing business because of huge and stable demand on fishsauce by market However, this commodity has not widely developed because this product is mainly consumed by domestic markets + Anchovies used for fishmeal processing: On average, kg of broken and low-valued anchovies with the price of 1000VND/kg can produce kg of fishmeal which can be sold with price of 12,000VND/kg Obviously, the values of anchovies have been increased by fishmeal processing Accordingly, fishmeal processor can benefit about 1,000VND/kg, corresponding to 200VND/kg of anchovies and accounted for 20% in value The fishmeal processors mainly supply domestic markets and having no problems regarding to economic risk because of stable demand This industry has not widely developed because of limitation in fishmeal quality + Anchovies for steamed- dried products Steamed – dried anchovies are favourite foods for Chinese and Korean markets For the small size of anchovies landed, about kg of materials (price of material anchovy is about 6,000 VND/kg), can converted to kg of dried product (with price of 50,000 VND/kg) Thus by processing, value of anchovies has been considerably raised Benefit after subtracted all producing costs, processor can obtain 8,000VND of one kg final product that equals to 2,000 VND/kg of fish material (33%) For the product of large size, 3kg of fish material (5,000VND/kg) can produce kg of final product (21,000 VND/kg) Therefore, processors benefit 1,000 VND/kg after processing costs and corresponding to benefit 300 VND per 1kg of fish material (6%) Steamed – dried anchovies are mosly sold to local middlemen of exported anchovys’ products Importers send representatives to examinate the quality of anchovy products at local processing plants and to buy processed anchovy products from middlemen Middlemen play middle role in doing business and get a bonus of 200-500 VND/kg anchovy from importers and they are responsible to liquidate all money with processing plants in 15 – 20 days from traded time Importers of steamed – dried anchovy products not directly buy from processing plants because of mostly processing plants are smallscale, not supply enough for one container of 25-30 tons However, 33 processors are afraid of direct marketing to representatives of importes as they worry about difficulty in payment matters The chain in anchovy products for domestic markets can be basically descripbed as steamed-dried anchovy products from processing plants are collected by middlemen both in local and other provinces then distributed to wholesalers and retailers Similarly, in the market chain, at each intermediate distribution phase, market price of anchovy products is added with a certain amount thus the price is always increased by the end of the chain Nowadays, in the market, this product is favourite thus processing plants not meet high risk in economic term However, the delay in payment some time happened, even from one to two months later, because of late money payment from importers The middlemen also not frequently have risk matter due to the importers really need to have goods imported On the other hand, only when the orders of mporters available, then local fish processing plants and midlemen decide the gather products for export, therefore the market risk for middlemen is really rare Up to now, the quality control in anchovy processing industry is fairly good Damages caused by hygienic matters for fish processing plants, businessmen and other stakeholders have not been obsereved - Supply chain of anchorvy in consuming phase and relevant stakeholders Anchovy products come to consumers by many different ways including retailers, supermarkets, schools, restaurants etc… after number of previous phases of immediate chains The shortest way transference of fishing products to consumers is fresh anchovies used which are normally retailers sell at local market with price of 6,000 VND/kg, difference of 600 VND/kg (12%) from fishers price sold Thus, the simplest and the least middle phase of fishing products coming to local consumers the price of anchovies has also been increased in 20% And, the same trend as previous fishery mentioned above, the longer the market chain, the higher price will be paid by end consumers Although, the products of anchovy fishery are not complicated, mostly focused on fresh and dried products but because of not consistent in terms of materials thus the quality of products bought by consumers are also inconsistent and diversity in market price In the context of the present market mechanism, consumer can have risks in both quality and price of fishing products Even the retailers are inevitable these risks however according to the business principles for a given item, salesmen nerver sell thing with lower price than the price he/she bought it Only the systems of schools, restaurants etc… are stable and not allow using the 34 low quality products will be running at loss as normal consumers when these risks happened 2.4 Efficiency and competitiveness of fisheries supply chain Based on the assessements of supply chain of ovrall marine capture fishery and particularly in three typical types of fishing products namely squid, anchovies and clam, it can concluded that the supply chains in fishing products are really complicated, diverse in types and product quality, many intermediate phases, spontaneous and not regulated by government In addition, the efficiency and competitiveness of these supply chains are fairly low It is reflected by the follows: Supply chain of seafood producing phase: The efficiency and competitiveness of supply chain are not high and they are obviously reflected in capture fishing operation Due to the great biodiversity, number of individuals of the same species is not high in one fishing haul and not homogenous in size, except anchovy’s fishery Moreover, fishing industry of Vietnam is small scale, fishing boat equipped with poor preservation facility, high growth rate in fishing effort; low fishing selectivity of gears has caused fishery resources dramatically declined Besides, high input costs, especially, high increase in fuel price, decreasing in catch are the main reasons which lead the sector running with low efficiency and number of fishing boats unaffordable to go fishing Furthermore, due to the limitation in manpower, management of fish processing industry including quality control issues is uncompleted thus traceability and hygienic control are faced many difficulties Consequently, application of eco-labels, certifications in fishing products might not conducted and lead to loss exported market share for Vietnam fisheries products Supply chain of seafood in intermediate phase including middle trading and post harvest processing +Fish processing phase: Presently, even though exported seafood of Vietnam is ranked in top 10 world countries in terms of total exported turn over, efficiency and competitiveness of supply chain in fish procesing are really low compared to others in this group Although value added of exported processing products and economic efficiency of processing plants have been considerably improved, however, the initiatives to strengthening competitiveness is very low because processing plants of Vietnam are small scale, not capable enough to have synchronic investment in from the phase of post harvest preservation and material storage (due to not sufficient in stock of preservation and storage fish materials, therefore, 35 processing plants can not be large scale to have long term contract of supplying exported items and to maintain exported market share), to the phase of products marketing activity, not be able to updated market information in time Fish processing of domestic consumed products is mainly traditional methods, small scale, unlabled, un-traceable and low standard in food safety and hygiene These problems are essential to be solved aiming to improve efficiency and competitiveness of supply chain in fish processing industry in global economic integration +Intermediate distributing phase: This is the most efficiency and highest competitiveness phase in the supply chain of capture fishery products Notwithstanding, based on the overall point of view, the efficiency and competitiveness of this activity is short term business, not stable and unsustainable in the long term Business activities of this phase are un-cordinated, responsible by private ownerships companies, not managed by government in level of operating and financial transparence, quality control of the commercial products This will lead to loss the relative equity in sharing benefits among actors of supply chain, prevents production development, also narrow the consuming markets, hard to pass the trade barriers which are becoming more and more tighten conditions of sustainable production and food hygiene matters +Consuming phase: This is the last phase of supply chain of fisheries products; however, it is not high efficiency Consumers are completely passive with prices and quality of the market products There is absent of transparence in market price and quality of commercial products, the reason of this matter originated from phase of fishing activity- the first phase of supply chain of the seafood products which have numbers of weakness as mentioned above, moreover, the spontaneous operation of the intermediate phase and post harvest processing not strictly managed by the government in quality control and market price Thus this is really important phase which generates motivation for the chain of economic activities, however in marine capture fishery, excepting importers; consuming phase in dosmestic market seems to be passive, and consumers are not protected and the concept of customer rights are not guaranteed The domestic consumers are in situation of: “no choice to buy products”, this situation will slow down the development of activities in the supply chain of capture fisheries products All phases of the supply chain in capture fisheries products inVietnam have not been closely interlinked to make unity in 36 implementing the objectives of improvement efficiency and competitiveness of marine products and to ensure all phases are high efficiency and competitiveness in order to pass all trade barriers and toward sustainable marine capture fishery as well as overall fishery 37 III SOLUTIONS FOR IMPROVING SUPPLY CHAIN TO STRENGTHEN COMPETITIVENESS AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT In order to improve competitiveness and sustainable development of Vietnam marine capture fishery, the following basic solutions should be implemented 3.1 Increasing efficiency and competitiveness of production phase To improve the competitiveness and to develop the marine fisheries sector toward sustainability, the effectiveness of the production phase (1st chain) in the supply chain must be improved in the following issues: - Effectively gathering relevant resources in the society, strengthening the implementation of direction of government on reducing the inshore fishing efforts Sustainable fishing gears are priority to use in the near future while destructive fishing methods must be strictly prohibited Close area and close season need to be carried out to protect fish stocks from state of overfished - Continue to improvethe fisheries infrastructure system to meet the hygine food safety & ensure the highest efficiency service for fishing operation Particularly, fishing ports, landing sites, shelters, fish markets, systems of information of fishing grounds and markets need to have more investment from government - Studies on seeking the solutions for limitation the issues of forcing reduction of raw products prices in good catch season, need to be paid attention to Especially, studies on strengthening system of fish preservation and material storage need to be focused on to reduce the losses in terms of quantity as well as quality of fishing products during post harvest process - Continue to the direct supports to the marine capture fisheries activities The policies of subsidy should be emphasized on the sustainable fishery, for instances, subsidies in restructure fishing effort, and certification for hygienic products, product tracibility, and management based on zoning areas etc… Nowadays, fishers are difficult to get credits to develop their prodution activities because they already have a huge amount of bad loans with the banks They can not pay their loans back to the banks Thus they need to be subsidized / supported from the government 38 - Promoting case studies on certification of sustainable fishing products, in the short term focus on the un-mobile species such as clam and scallop fisheries - Government need to have a policy of subsidy for coastal and islands area in broader sense not only fisheries, in education and job opportunity and especially generating alternative job for poor fishers households The natural disaster assistance fund should be formed, the level of present financial assistance for natural disaster is really low; fund and support need to be invested more in oder to help fishers reinvest in fishing operation - Promoting activity of Vietnam Fisheries Society (VINAFIS) aiming to strengthening the interlinks among fishing boat owners for guarantee prices of fishing products and improve matters dealing with hygiene, preservation of post harvest 3.2 Increasing efficiency and competitiveness of processing phase - Increasing in solutions aiming to buy hygienic products, associating fish processing plants to strictly implement the requirement in buying clean products, decreasing cost of examining quality of materials for fish processing… to ensure supply enough high quality material for processing industry - Focusing on increase storage capacity of system of stored stocks of fish materials and final processed products, to enable initiative in commodity supply for importers, simultaneously, to contribute to minimize drop in raw material price in case of high volume of fish landing during the main fishing season Preferential credits should be provided by government so as fish processor can afford to invest in making infrastructure for material and processed products stored purpose and spare materials as well - Subsidies in research on good/effective preservative chemicals as well as in using these chemicals should be supported by government at the present time - New international fish markets should be emphasised to widely spread, particularly, African markets and the government should be a bridge to connect international markets (importers) with domestic fish processing plants Policy of subsidies in reducing imported taxes on materials imported should be carefully considered -Development the operation of Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporter and Producers (VASEP) in linkages the Vietnamese processing 39 plants in official export relations, to reduce middle phases of fish processed products, to be ensured and transparence in finance for exported processing plants 3.3 Developing service models to ensure the transparence of price and food quality - Developing models of Fisheries Service and Trading Cooperatives Presently, these cooperatives not play any important role in the intermediate phase and contribution to sustainable management because of limitations in association scale, however, these cooperatives have certain advantages in assistance of ensuring food safety and quality control hygiene of fishing products, food tracebility, narrowing competitiveness advantage of middlemen, contributing to minimize risks for fishing boat owners and fishers; forming collective business and production organization which are in accordance with development trend in socialization and specialization labor force in order to strengthen competititiveness in global economic integration - Promoting establishment the pilot center for fish auction market, in the short term, pilot projects of aution marekets should be implemented for squid fishing products because these products are relatively unity and easy for category, and favourite consuming by domestic markets - Formulating a system of the central fish markets (whole sale), fish commercial centers with main focus on managing the sector toward financial tranparence and quality control applied for all fishing products - The government has to develop regulations on fine, penalty and awading to the enterprises, who exploit and trade the unsafe or safe products in term of food satety and hygienic issues The interconnection needs to be implemented between relevant phases of productionmarketing distribution – processing –export - Promoting the dynamics and effectiveness of middlemen system in gathering, sorting and contributing fishing products to supply demands of consumers, investment, assistance fishers, actively seeking proper management regime for making sure financial transparence and fish quality control for system of middlemen 3.4 Promoting activities in ensuring consumer right An organization for protecting consumers’ rights must be establised This organization has right to examized and control the quality as well as price of the items being sold in the market 40 3.5 Promoting management activities and adjustment of government in supply chain of capture products - Shaping and promoting the interlinked relationship between fisheries managers – processors – consumers in preventing from using prohibited chemicals for fish product preservation, strictly guarantee food safety and hygienic standards for materials as well as final processing products In this relashionship, the role of processors is really important Obviously, processors have right to completely decide whether they buy the unsafe materials or not -Promoting management activities and adjustment of government in system of middlemen aiming to obtain the financial transparence, food safety and hygiene, relative equity contribution in benefit in supply chain of products of the marine capture fishery - Actively assistance for development in producing and purchasing sustainable products of marine capture fishery aiming to protect marine fishery resources, ensuring food safety and hygiene, implementation of clean product certification system, label registration and product traceability etc… - Continue to form the policies system to encourage the formation of different cooperation forms in production, trading and marketing the marine products such as cooperatives, production incorporations, joint venture… This will create conditions to implement the traceability of the fisheries products and register for the product labels and improve the competitive capacity of the producers and the whole marine product supply chains - The implementation of the product traceability and the provision of the certification for marine capture products in Viet Nam are very difficult as the capture fisheries in Viet Nam are characterised with the multi-gears and small scale attributes Ideally, it should be managed from the determination of the fishing backgrounds to product hygenic inspection in post havest management and product transportation and trading….Therefore, the traceability and certification provision for marine capture products have to be done, especially with the exportable products in the trend of global economic integration In order to that, the Government has to continue to support for studying the suitable sulutions for and develop the sound models to manage the marine capture 41 products for export This may be done through the formation of different cooperation forms and the landing regulations - Actively support relevant associations in finding and expanding markets for clean products, forming the production models and supply the clean products - Generally, the consumers of the marine products, which are marketed domestically, can only influence on marine fisheries resources at the production stage The government needs to have suitable supportive activities in order to continue to improve the management capacity for responsible agencies in managing, inspecting and controling the marine production activities according to the existing state regulations At the same time, the government should continue to support to develop the community-based fisheries resource protection models With the exportable products, the relevant agencies should have right regulations to control and limit the export of unsuitable marine products, especially the small size products, which threat the sustainability of fisheries resources 3.6 Promoting communicated atctivities, improving awareness on commercial barriers, food safety and hygiene, product labeled, sustainable product cerification, for all stakeholders participating in supply chain of marine products including consumers - The Government should have supportive policies to improve the capacity for associations related in the supply chain of marine fisheries Currently, there are various relevant associations such as VINAFIS, VASEP,… and in the future some new associations may be formed such as the seafood consumer association, fisheries cooperative alliance… Those associations will be responsible for communication and improve awareness for their members on the issues of trade barriers, food safety, product label registration and traceability… - Strengthening the communication activities on the requirements of trade barriers, food safety, product label registration, traceability and fisheries resource protection… through the mass media means and brochure delivery to the relevant stakeholders - Develop and inform widely the guidelines on the procedures of product label registration and traceability… 42 43 CONCLUSIONS AND SUGGESTIONS Restructure the supply chain of marine capture fisheries products and increasing consumer demand as well as sustainable marine fisheries development are essential issues for sustainable development of marine capture fishery in Vietnam The basic problems need to be comprehensivley solved are as follows: to ensure sustainable fish resources for exploiting fishery; to ensure the relative equity in benefits sharing of actors along supply chain : fishers- middlemen-processors – consumers; to guarantee food safety and hygiene; and to pass the trade barriers to follow global economic integration In order to solve these above problems, efforts from all stakeholders must be unity and coporated Firstly, governmental bodies and research institutions need to try their best to cooperate and cordinate with each other to develop suitable ways to effectively implement the proposed solutions and also needs a lot of efforts from all relevant stakeholders such as fishers, processing plants, fishing services and consumers in implementing the mentioned solutions These issues are very complicated however, in the context of global economic integration, if the solutions are not be focused, the effectiveness and competitiveness will be weak, consequently, the capture fishery will not be able to meet the sustainability purposes of the sector 44 REFERENCES MARD – Department of Foreign Affairs, 2007 The commitments of Viet Nam with WTO in the fields of agriculture and rural development (Các cam kết Việt Nam với WTO lĩnh vực NNPTNT, Hà Nội 2007) MARD – Department of Planning, 2002 Directions for agriculture development in the context of integration (Phương hướng phát triển nông nghiệp trình hội nhập, năm 2002) MOFI – FAO – DANIDA, 2003 Market and credit issues in fisheries sector in Viet Nam ( Thị trường tín dụng ngành thủy sản Việt Nam, năm 2003) MOFI – The Fisheries Information center, 2002 Guidelines on determination, assessment and reporting on price subsidies in fisheries sector ( Hướng dẫn xác định, đánh giá báo cáo trợ giá ngành thủy sản, năm 2002) MOFI-Danida-Cowi consulting company, 1996 Trade, processing and marketing for fisheries products (Thương mại, chế biến tiếp thị thủy sản Việt Nam, năm 1996) MOFI-Danida-Ramboll consulting company, 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trường sản 12 phẩm thủy sản, năm 1997) 45 FAO – RIA 1, 2005 Methodology for researching market chains and livelihood analysis for coastal aquaculture (Phương pháp nghiên cứu chuỗi thị trường phân 13 tích sinh kế NTTS ven biển, năm 2005) VIFEP – Hambrey consulting company, 2005 Market potentials and research strategy for fisheries sector ( Tiềm thị trường chiến lược nghiên cứu, năm 14 2005) 46 ... This thematic report contains the main following sections: I The definition of the supply chain? ? II The supply chain of marine fishing products 2.1 The chart of the supply chain for marine fishing... stakeholders in the supply chain and initiate the solutions for improving that supply chain in order to improve the competition ability and sustainable development of the fisheries sector The fisheries supply. .. through the cooperation and dependence with each other while maintaining their independence The common objectives will maximize the values of all parts in the supply chain One supply chain with the