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..................................................................7
II. THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF CAPTURE FISHERIES PRODUCTS...........................9
2.1 The chart for the supply chain of capture fisheries products and the roles of
relevant stakeholders..................................................................................................9
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
2
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural
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
3
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 small-
scale 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.
4
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, re-
shaping 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
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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
6
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.
(
An example of a 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
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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.

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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:
THE CHART FOR THE SUPPLY CHAIN OF THE CAPTURE
FISHERIES PRODUCTS
As the characteristics of the Vietnamese fisheries sector are multi-
species 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
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Producers/
fishers
Distributors
Processors
Distributors
Final-
end

consumers
Distributors
Processors
Distributors
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.
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+ Fishing cooperatives with contract for the fishing vessel team:
The vessels and their equipments are belonged to the cooperatives but
fishing activitires are given to the fishing feets members , the operational
costs for fishing and product selling are responsibilities of the fishing
vessel team who hire the vessels from the cooperatives by contract. The
marine fishing vessel renters have responsibilities to payback their rents
for the fishing cooperatives.
(3) The cooperative manager board: the fishing cooperatives often
have manager board, who are elected by the cooperative members and
represent for all members. The manager board decides all the activities of
the cooperative. All the vessels, equipments and operation costs for one
fishing boat trip are borne by the cooperative, the fishers sailors only
have responsibilities to operate the fishing activities. The product selling
is decided by th cooperative manager board.
(4) The middle men (nau vua
1
in Vietnamese): Middle men is a
person or enterprises, who buy or sell the fishing products as a bridge

between the fishers and the other middle trading parties or processing
plants. The middle men may invest capitals for the vessel owners or they
have their own vessels and processing plants (ALMRV project – Research
on middle men, 2005).
The buyers may be:
(1) The consumers: direct selling of catch from fishers to the end
consumers is not common in Vietnamese fisheries for export purposes,
but often associated with the fishing products catched by the small engine
boats, which land on local small landing sites. Those boats have a part of
their products sold to the local poeple in the hamlets near the landing
sites.
(2) The retailers: direct selling of catch from fishers to the end
consumers is not common either, but often associated with the fishing
products catched by the small engine boats, which land on local small
landing sites. Those boats have a part of their products sold to the small
local traders and then those traders sell products to the local markets
(commune or district level).
(3) The wholesalers: they are categorised in different forms with
different scales of activities:
+ The small scale wholesaler: there are a number of wholesalers
providing products for the retailers and restaurants. They are middle
traders, who have small trading shops at the markets. They often have
financial relationship with the vessel owners as well as their customers.
1
Local name of middle men
11
+ The wholesalers, who are primary middle men: they are people,
who have direct relationship in buying products of the fishers and then
transfer to the other buyers, but mainly transfer to the secondary middle
men (inside or outside their province) and processing companies.

(4) Processing companies: Nomarlly the processing companies also
ask their staff to the fishing ports or local landing sites to purchase
materials directly from the vessel owners in order to reduce their costs of
materials compare to buy through several levels of middle men.
(5) The cooperatives for marine fishing marketing services: these
cooperatives provide necessary services for marine fishing activities such
as buying fishing products at the sea (instead of landing sites or fishing
ports) . Those cooperatives have functions as primary middle men, but
the investment capitals are contributed from a group of members.
The product values are determized through the product prices. At
the fishing production phase, those values are set through the mutual
agreement between the vessel owners and buyers, including the vessel
owners, who have financial relationship with the middle men (such as
borrow loans, equipment investment, get the operation costs in advance
for a sea trip…). The products prices are set under these ways:
a) Packages trading of fishing products:
The vessel owners sell all their products to the buyers (both
categorized and uncategorized products) with the agreed prices, which
were set at the time of product delivery. The payment is done
immediately in the cases of irregular buyers, small scale and scattered. In
the cases that the buyers are regular customers (e.g middle men and
cooperatives) the payment will be done after about 7 – 10 days.
b) Selling fishing products through middle men: The middle men
are middle mediators between the vessel owners and the buyers (who
have demands for the product buying). The middle men are responsible to
reach the price agreement between the vessel owners and the buyers, use
their prestige to pay for the successful deals to the vessel owners. After
real payment completed, those middle men will enjoy a part of
commissions from the product prices, about 100 – 1,000 – 3,000 VND/kg
2

of products, depending on the high or low purchased prices. Selling
products through middle men have two forms:
b.1 The relevant parties without financial relationship: for the
products that are limited supply, the middle men reduce the amount of
commissions that the vessel owners get back (in comparison with the
market prices). With the products that are over – supply, the middle men
2
17,480 VND =1 USD at reporting exchange rate
12
only purchased when the vessel owners run out of products and increase
the amount of commissions (in comparison with the market prices).
b.2 The relevant parties with financial relationship: the amount of
commissions will be set according to the markets’ prices. If the vessel
owners, who have financial relationship with the middle men, find out the
markets / buyers to sell their products with higher prices, they can still
sell their products to that strange markets / buyers. However, in these
cases, the vessel owners still have to pay the same amount of the
commissions for the middle men, who have financial relationship with
them.
However, the price agreement here has relative meaning since the
fisheries products characterised of to be easy to be rotted and quickly get
rotten as well as the seasonal products. In addition, the storage equipment
on the boats is rudimentary, so that the products can not be stored for
long time after landed. This means that the vessel owners are often losers
in the price setting agreement, especially at the main fishing seasons or
the times that many vessels landed at the same time with mass
productions. This is a crucial issue that requires the proper macro
mechanisms from the government in order to reduce the risks for the
vessel owners and fishers, who directly invested in marine fishing
operation.

In addition, there are several channgeles asscoaited with exsiting supply chain
of seafood in Vietnam. 1> Poor cooperation between stakeholders among the
supply chain before and under the present financial crisis; middle-men and
processing/exporting enterprises are the most benefited group (see the analysis
of value chain) reported by the fishers and government officers. 2> Fishers,
middle-men, fishing ports/landing sites are almost have poor concern about the
resources and environmental aspects and traceability of the products; profits,
prices and market are the most concern of these groups among supply chain. 3>
Processing plants, exporters and consumers concern a lot on the quality of the
seafood products but they cannot influence through the existing supply chain
which considered no one manage the supply chain and no one ensure the
traceability of seafood .
The food safety issue is an urgent issue that need to be mentioned
in this period. As the storage equipment is rudimentary, the input costs
are increased rapidly, while the prices of output products increase slowly,
the revenues may not compensate for the input prices. On the other hand,
as the processing factories are not difficult when buying materials, the
vessel owners often use the cheap and low quality chemicals and
medicines to maintain the fresh products, ignore the regulations on food
safety.
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Besides that, the issues of traceability and certification for
sustainable products of marine fishing are very difficult to implemented
under the current supply chain, except the fishing products of mollusk
species, which distribute concentrated and less or un-migrated such as
clam, scallop…
2.1.2 The product flow in the immediate trading phase and
relevant stakeholders
The values of marine fishing products in the middle stages of
trading, including the processing phase are the most fluctuated and

complicated. In this satge, any parties involved in will conduct two
functions of buying and selling and their activities are very diverse.
According to the chart of the supply chain of marine fishing products, the
involved parties may be categorized as the follows:
(1) The wholesalers, includes:
The small scale wholesalers: they are middle traders for marine
fishing products. They have relationships with many relevant parties such
as vessel owners, retailers, middle men, processing companies, but they
do not have relationships with the consumers. These small scale
wholesalers purchase the production of the vessel owners and middle men
and then sell those products to the retailers and processing companies.
The middle men at different levels: The primary middle men, who
often have their shops or facilities at the fishing ports or landing sites, are
the direct buyers, who buy products directly from the vessel owners or
engage in fishing by themselves. The primary middle men have very
close relationship with the secondary middle men, who often own shops
or facilities in the big cities. The secondary middle men often have close
relationship with the primary middle men in order to get easy to buy
fishing products. They also have close relationship with the small scale
traders, who trade the fresh products as well as the processing plants in
order to get easy to market their products.
(2) Hotels and restaurants: The system of hotels and restaurants is
an important immediate parties in trading seafood to the end consumers
with both processed and non- processed products. The hotels and
restaurants mainly have relationships with the small scale seafood traders
in order to buy products with both processed and non- processed products
to serve their customers.
(3) The processing companies and system of processed product
consumption (companies, agents, wholesalers, detailers, hotels and
restaurants…) are also an important immediate parties in the supply chain

of the seafood. The rate of marine fishing products, which are put in the
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processing factories to increase the value – added of the fishing products,
creating more attractive products for the end consumers and meet the
demands of the markets, is increased. The processing enterprises,
including frozen processing, dry processing, fish source processing,
processing for export and domestic consumptions all are places to
purchase a huge amount of the marine fishing products to provide the
input materials for processed products. In order to purchase the input
materials, the processing enterprises set trading relationships with the
middle men, vessel owners and smaller traders. After the process of
development to increase the value – added for the marine fishing
products, the system of marketing for marine fishing processed products
become diverse and dynamic as the one of the fresh fisheries products. In
this system, the middle men do not have an important role as in the
production phases, but several relevant parties have appeared and become
important parties in the marketing system. They are a system of fisheries
companies, who trade processed products; and agents as well as
companies, who import fisheries products from foreign countries.
(4) For the dried fisheries processed products, there are still
existences of the system of middle men, who trade the dried fisheries
processed products for domestic and export markets. The system of
wholesale and detail trading of fisheries processed products is still existed
in order to supply goods to supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and schools,
… They are system of trading fisheries products to the end foreign and
domestic consumers.
(5) The marine fisheries service cooperatives: The fisheries service
cooperatives in this stage also have the same role with the one of the first
class middle men. They purchase marine fishing products and then sell to
the processing companies and also to other middle men.

(6) The retailers: normally the retailers are the final middle traders,
who transfer the goods to the end consumers. In the supply chain of the
marine fishing products, as the marine fishing have characteristics of
small – scale and “fisheries for people”, the retailers may be the primary
traders to transfer products to the end consumers. Here, the retailers may
be categorized into three groups depending their positions in the trading
system: (a) The group of direct trading products from the vessel owners
to the end consumers; (2) the group of trading fresh seafood from the
other traders to the end consumers; (3) the group of transfer processed
products from the other traders and the agents of processed seafood to the
end consumers.
The prices of seafood in this immediate phase of trading is more
relatively stable than the ones in the production phase in terms of time
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and prices. The product prices in these cases are agreed through phone
negociation; the costs of transportation are borne by the sellers; the
payment will be made after 7 - 10 days of trading, even after 15 days in
the cases that the purchased products are fresh or as input materials for
processing companies; even after 15 – 30 days in the cases that the
purchased products are processed and for export.
In this stage, the buyers are also sellers. They have sufficient and
better information on markets, so that they get less risk than the vessel
owners and the primary middle men in the production stages. Currently,
this stage of trading is total dominated by the private parties, only a small
part is managed by the fisheries cooperatives. There are alomost no
support from the government in this stage, except some limitted training
courses and communications on food safety issues and environment
protection.
This stage also gets risks on food safety issue. As the purpose of
storing fresh products, the processing companies lack equipment to

control the material quality and the traceability for the products is not
conducted properly, the food safety issues are still existed and create
negative impacts on the consumers. In the trend of global integration,
with more strict requirements on food safety, the unsolved problems in
food safety insurance, traceability and certification for marine fishing
products will effect directly to the economic efficiency and prestige of the
marine fishing production phase – an important link in the supply chain,
which create motivations for marine fisheries economy developement.
Currently, the labelling issues of the seafood products are getting
paid much attention in this phase, especially with the processed fisheries
products of processing companies. However, this is a big challenge for
marine fishing products in both domestic and foreign markets. This is
also an issue impacting significantly the competition ability of marine
fishing products in the context of global integration.
2.1.3 The supply product to the end consumers
The end consumers of marine fishing products include both
domestic and foreign consumers. In the scope of this research, as
mentioned above, we only focuses on analyzing and assessing the supply
chain of marine fishing products to the end consumers for the domestic
consumption products and to importers for the export products.
Go through many phases in the supply chain of the marine fishing
products, these marine fishing products are consumed by the end
consumers by various ways. They may be divided into two groups as
follows:
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(1) Non – processed products (group 1): the product values of the
non – processed products in the immediate trading stage is not added, but
maintained or reduced. However, the prices of those non – processed
products are increased regularly through each trading stage as the cost of
storage and preservation as well as the costs of transportation for those

products. The group of non – processed products, which goes to the end
consumers or importers, includes products for domestic and foreign
consumption.
The non – processed products, which are consumed domestically
normally go to the end consumers from the retailers, small scale agents,
supermarkets, restaurants, hotels, schools; only a few products from small
scale vessel owners, who fishing in the near shore areas. The prices of
products at the end consumption phase depend on the distance of product
transportation, the number of immediate trading stages and the values of
the products. These prices are mainly decided by the sellers. The
consumers often accept the prices that are set by the sellers. The
consumers only influence the product prices once those prices increased
too high, exceeding their level of expenditure power. In that case, the
consumers will limit their expenditure and at the macro level of the
economy, the consumers may influence the product prices to limit the
price increase or decrease. The product prices once go through one
middle trading stage such as the retailers, normally increased at least by
10%.
The non – processed products, which are exported to foreign
countries normally go to the importers through the unofficial export
channels (small volume channels). The non – processed products go to
the importers mainly from the wholesale traders, only small amount of
products go directly from the vessel owners through the ways of direct
purchases right on the sea. The prices of products sold to the importers
are normally decided by the importers.
(2) Processed products (group 2): With the processed products,
their values are added through processed and due to the transportation
and trading costs, their prices are also increased significantly at each
stage of processing and trading. The group of processed products, which
goes to the end consumers or importers, includes products for domestic

and foreign consumption.
The processed products, which are consumed domestically normally
reach the end consumers from the detailers, small scale agents,
supermarkets, restaurants, hotels and schools. The prices of products at
the end consumption stage depend on the values of the processed
products (quality and category of the products), distance of product
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transportation and the number of middle trading stages. These prices are
also mainly decided by the sellers. The consumers often accept the prices
that are set by the sellers. The consumers only influence the product
prices once those prices increased too high, exceeding their level of
expenditure power. In that case, the consumers will limit their
expenditure and at the macro level of the economy, the consumers may
influence the product prices to limit the price increase or decrease.
The processed products, which are exported to foreign countries
normally reach the importers from the processing companies/plants and
fisheries exporters (direct export), some products from the fisheries
export companies or entrusted export companies. The dried seafood
products sold to the importers by the middle men, who collect products
for drying to export. The middle men have to use their prestige in trading
and discuss the prices between the dry processing companies with the
importers. The prices of processed products sold to the importers are
normally decided by the importers. However, the powers of the importers
for price setting for the processed marine fishing products are not as
strong as the non – processed export marine fishing products. This is
explained as the processed products may be stored in a longer time in
comparison with the non – processed products. In addition, the demands
for the processed products are increasing; therefore, the processing
companies and middle men have advantages in getting price agreement
with the importers.

2.2 Benefits and conflicts between relevant stakeholders
- The vessel owners :
The above analyses have focused on the less advantage of the
marine fishers such as the vessel owners in setting the product prices for
the marine products. A majority of normal marine fishers, who do not
take part in trading fishing products, enjoys the least amount of profits
and have the least amount of accumulated capitals from selling their
products. They are easy to get risks from natural calamities, limited
resources and the market fluctuation. They are the most vulnerable party
from those threats. In addition, they do not have much accumulated
capitals, so that they normally have to borrow loans from the middle men
to continue their production and then become dependant on the middle
men easily.
For the vessel owners, who do not have to borrow loans from the
middle men, they still have to depend on the middle men in marketing
their products. A majority of the vessel owners can not sell their products
directly to the customers as they are not familiar with making deal, poor
competent in trading and do not have frequent customers. In addition, as
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