Hanoi, Sha'ban 13, 1435, Jun 11, 2014, SPA -- Vietnam will spend 760 million dollars to support fishermen and coast guards, including building stronger boats, a fisheries official confirmed Wednesday, as tensions with China mount over competing territorial claims to the South China Sea. "We have had policies to exploit resources in our sea for a very long time, but the issue has become hotter following China's aggressive actions in the sea," Tran Cao Muu, General Secretary of the Vietnam Fisheries Association, told dpa. The plan, approved by the National Assembly on Monday, comes over a month after China deployed a deep-sea oil drilling platform in waters near the disputed Paracel islands, which Vietnam says is in its Exclusive Economic Zone. The money will be used to buy equipment for patrols and build offshore fishing vessels for the Vietnam Coast Guard, the Vietnam Fisheries Resources Surveillance Force and fishermen. It includes construction of 3,000 larger, steel-clad fishing boats. Vietnam's current fleet of around 100,000 boats are made of wood. --SPA 14:20 LOCAL TIME 11:20 GMT www.spa.gov.sa/w