Fishermen are drowning in debt after borrowing to build ships under Decree 67.

Presenting his opinion at the morning meeting on November 20, delegate Duong Van Phuoc ( Quang Nam delegation) requested the Government to promptly pay attention to resolving debts for fishing boat building for fishermen according to Decree 67 of 2014, which the Quang Nam Provincial National Assembly Delegation has proposed many times.

"Fishermen are struggling to pay off debts, commercial banks are lending money as directed. Now bad debts have become a burden, but the government has not focused on solving them yet," said Mr. Phuoc, adding that this is a long-standing problem in Quang Nam.

Regarding this issue, the National Assembly delegation of Quang Nam province has proposed that the National Assembly include it in Resolution 2023, but the National Assembly Standing Committee explained that this is the Government's matter, so the Government must have a plan to resolve it, but people are waiting forever without knowing when. We respectfully request the Government to pay attention.

Dialogue - Fishermen are drowning in debt after borrowing to build ships under Decree 67 — Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan (Photo: Quochoi.vn).

Explaining the issue raised by the delegates, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan said that the Ministry has completed the draft amendment to Decree 67 of 2014 to submit to the Government, including resolving the debt of fishermen who borrowed money from banks to build ships in the past.

“Reporting to delegate Phuoc and all National Assembly delegates, banking transactions with ship owners are civil economic transactions, now they are arising problems. We are also very emotional when there are fishermen who were honored in the past but now have become people who have to leave their homes due to bank debt collection,” Mr. Hoan stated.

According to the Minister, this is a complicated story, not just the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, not just a government policy can solve it. "For a long time, we have not done really well in Project 67 on shipbuilding," Mr. Hoan stated.

Mr. Hoan also said that when he went to survey the locality, he found that, in fact, not all ship owners could not pay their debts. But no one paid their debts when there were ship owners who could not pay their debts.

"That means one person is in cahoots with another. People are waiting for each other. There are ship owners who are in debt, we know their family circumstances. But this is the story of the bank and the ship owner," Mr. Hoan reiterated.

Minister Le Minh Hoan said that when amending Decree 67, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development is aiming to propose that banks can restructure debts to allow ship owners who are no longer able to pay their debts to transfer their ships to others.

Mr. Hoan said that a difficult point in resolving debt for shipbuilding under Decree 67 is that the collateral for the ship built under Decree 67 is very different from the bank loan. When the bank auctions those ships, their real value is no longer the same as before. People say that when borrowing money, the bank must record that amount when auctioning, but the bank only sets the price according to the actual price of the ship at the present time.

"I suggest that Quang Nam and local banks sit down with each case individually and not have a blanket policy for all. Because there may once again be subjects who really cannot access it. Secondly, there may also be situations where the policy is taken advantage of. Because even the matter of voting for beneficiaries of Decree 67 to build ships had unclear and unclear issues at that time," said Mr. Hoan .

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