On August 5^th, the Department of Science and Technology held a meeting with other relevant provincial department to discuss over the proposal of “project to establish a provincial technical standard for cage fish farming units in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province”. Mr. Vuong Quang Can, deputy director of DOST chaired the meeting.

Recently, pollution at Cha Va river mouth in Long Son commune, Vung Tau city has been determined as the cause of the mass fish death at local fish cages, seriously affecting surrounding fish caging facilities and increasing risks of other environment issues. According to the survey made by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and the study conducted by the Institute for Environment and Resources, one the sources of the pollution was fish caging culture from nearby farming units.

However, there has been only one technical standard relating to fish caging regulation which is only applied for fresh water fish caging (the national technical standard QCVN 02-22:2015/BNNPTNT issued by the Ministry of Agricultural and Rural Development but at Circular no. 16/2015/TT-BNNPTNT). The lack of regulation in the field has caused difficulties in controlling water quality as well as food safety of fish caging units in other environment conditions such as at seas or river mouth regions. Therefore, there is a need to develop technical standard to mandate farming conditions at fish caging units to ensure the maintenance of water quality and food safety.

At the meeting, representatives from provincial departments agreed with the proposal of “project to establish a provincial technical standard for cage fish farming units in Ba Ria – Vung Tau province” and suggested some minor modifications in the draft. After completing the project proposal, the Department of Science and Technology will send it to relating organizations and individuals and publish it on department’s website in order to get opinion and suggestion from the public and relating parties before approving for implementation.