To remove the IUU 'yellow card', the Ministry of Agriculture has sent a document requesting the People's Committees of coastal provinces and cities to review and clearly identify the situation of fishing vessels losing connection.
Combating IUU fishing to remove EC's yellow card warning
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| Removing the IUU 'yellow card', the Ministry of Agriculture requires reviewing and clearly identifying the situation of fishing vessels losing connection |
At the online conference on guidelines for tracing the origin of aquatic products, serving the upcoming inspection by the European Commission (EC) delegation taking place on February 21, Mr. Tran Dinh Luan - Director of the Department of Fisheries ( Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development ) - emphasized that it is necessary to resolutely and seriously implement the Prime Minister's instructions and the EC's recommendations to soon remove the "yellow card".
Accordingly, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has issued a document requesting the People's Committees of coastal provinces and cities under the Central Government to review and clearly identify the situation of fishing vessels losing connection.
The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development requests the People's Committees of coastal provinces and cities under the Central Government to review, inspect and clearly identify the status of fishing vessels (where they are, whether they are operating or lying on shore, owners, registration records, inspections, and fishing licenses) that have lost connection through the fishing vessel monitoring system (VMS) for more than 6 months, especially for fishing vessels with a length of 24 m or more. Clearly report the cause of the loss of connection, the handling results, and the reason for not imposing penalties according to regulations for each case.
Provinces and cities verify information to strictly and thoroughly handle according to the law fishing vessels violating VMS regulations, especially fishing vessels with a length of 24 m or more; fishing vessels crossing maritime boundaries; and fishing vessels illegally exploiting in foreign waters.
Localities should propagate and guide fishermen to register fishing vessels according to regulations for fishing vessels that have not been registered locally; not to allow unregistered, uninspected, and unlicensed fishing vessels to operate locally.
At the same time, increase resources to implement the electronic traceability system for exploited aquatic products, electronic fishing logs to ensure information transparency, connect interoperable data to serve the traceability of exploited aquatic products; update data daily to fisheries management databases: fishing vessel information to the national fisheries database (VNFishBase); administrative sanction results to the administrative violation handling software; fishing logs, unloading output through ports, receipts for unloading aquatic products through ports, certificates of origin of exploited aquatic materials (SC papers), certificates of origin of exploited aquatic products (CC papers) to the Electronic Fishing Traceability Software System; list of fishing vessels at high risk of violating IUU fishing to the VMS database,... according to the guidance of the Department of Fisheries.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, there are 4,375 fishing boats over 15m that have not turned on their journey monitoring devices for over 6 months, including 220 fishing boats over 24m... Currently, the whole country still has nearly 15,200 "3 no" fishing boats (not registered, not inspected, not licensed).
Previously, in the fourth inspection, the EC maintained the "yellow card" warning and continued to issue four groups of recommendations to Vietnam. These included issues related to fishing vessels violating foreign waters, poor control of the origin of exported seafood and fishing vessels, and limited law enforcement, including penalties for disconnected fishing vessels.
It is expected that next April, the EC will visit Vietnam for the fifth inspection. This is considered the "last" chance for Vietnam to remove the yellow card before the EU election.
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