Japan helps to improve Vietnam tuna quality

High catch but poor quality

According to provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, tuna fisheries appeared in Binh Dinh province a long time ago with main fishing gears of longline and purse seine. Its main targeted species are yellowfin, bigeye and skipjack tuna. Since 2011, local fishermen used lights to attract squid as the bait to catch tuna, leading to a sharp rise in tuna output.

Recently, tuna handlines using lights become popular with local fishermen because it brings high productivity, shorter fishing trip and lower fishing costs. Through May 2014, local fishermen caught 65,900 MT of marine products in all varieties, up 6.3 percent year on year, including 4,000 MT of ocean tuna, up 4.9 percent year on year.

Despite high tuna output, its price and quality is low, failing to meet demand for exporting, especially to Japan. Vietnam tuna has poor quality because of outdated fishing and handling method and the inadequate preservation. Tuna meat quality is low because when being hauled and pulled up to the deck, tuna struggle strongly which raises acidlactic content in tuna meat. High temperature for fish preserving also reduce tuna meat quality. Besides, with high output, the process of handling the tuna catch is slow and it fails to maintain the freshness of tuna meat.

Enhancing tuna quality

At the early June 2014, local experts together with experts from the Kato Hitoshi company guided fishermen in Tam Quan Bac commune to install and operate Japan sets of tuna fishing gears and modern technologies.

With these sets of tuna fishing gears and application of tuna preservation and fishing process under Japanese technologies, the catching productivity will be raised, fishing journey will be shortened, particularly the output and quality of tuna will be enhanced.

KIM THU