This was the statement made by Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, at the meeting of the Steering Committee for combating illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing on the morning of September 19th, following the launch of a high-intensity campaign to carry out necessary and urgent tasks to combat IUU fishing and prepare for the 4th meeting with the EC Inspection Team.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, in recent times, functional departments and agencies, and local authorities in coastal areas have continued to make efforts to implement solutions to combat IUU (Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated) fishing. In particular, they have closely monitored and supervised fishing vessels at high risk of violating foreign waters. A total of 113 fishing vessels from the province with a "high risk" of violating foreign waters have been identified and placed under special monitoring. 100% of operating fishing vessels have had their VMS (Vehicle Monitoring System) equipment installed, and the existing vessel monitoring system is being utilized to track, monitor, and warn fishing vessels crossing Vietnam's maritime boundaries.
Since the beginning of the year, 32 cases of fishing vessels crossing maritime boundaries have been detected and warned through the vessel monitoring system. Specifically, from May 12th to September 12th, 2023, 22 instances of fishing vessels crossing maritime boundaries were detected and warned. As a result, apart from the incident involving one fishing vessel from Ham Tan district violating foreign waters at the beginning of 2023, no further violations of foreign waters have occurred. Law enforcement and handling of violations have been strengthened, particularly with the successful handling of two cases of fishing vessels violating foreign waters under Decree No. 42/2019/ND-CP, contributing to improved law enforcement effectiveness and deterrence. The process of managing and monitoring fishing vessels and catch through ports, as well as verifying and certifying the origin of seafood, has been carefully implemented, preventing any instances of erroneous documents being returned.
In addition, a comprehensive review and statistical survey of fishing vessels throughout the province has been completed. However, the management of fishing vessels still faces many shortcomings. The review revealed that the total number of unregistered fishing vessels with no registration numbers (e.g., "3 no's") as of August 15, 2023, was 1,782, an increase of 390 vessels compared to the May 2023 report (not including 118 vessels with "3 digits" previously managed by district-level authorities that have not yet been re-registered). Of the registered vessels, 879 had expired fishing licenses and 690 had expired inspection certificates. Some district-level localities have a very high percentage of unregistered fishing vessels, such as Ham Thuan Nam (68.38%) and Ham Tan (93.95%). Furthermore, the coordination in reviewing and updating registration data, fishing licenses, and installing VMS (Vehicle Monitoring System) on the national database system is inconsistent and not synchronized.
At the conference, representatives from local authorities shared the difficulties encountered in the process of comprehensively inspecting and compiling statistics on fishing vessels. The main reason was that most newly registered fishing vessels lacked proper documentation, making registration difficult. Furthermore, many localities had not strengthened their monitoring efforts and did not have accurate information on the actual number of fishing vessels in their areas. In addition, representatives from the Fisheries Sub-Department and the Border Guard Command of the province also highlighted the difficulties in handling the case of fishing vessel BTH 96238 TS from Ham Tan district, which violated foreign waters in early 2023; and the inability to process two vessels that had lost VMS connectivity for over 10 days. Mr. Nguyen Van Chien – Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development – added: “Binh Thuan is one of four locations where the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will establish a delegation to conduct inspections in the near future. Therefore, localities are urged to promptly implement the key tasks emphasized by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development regarding combating IUU fishing in the province.”
Concluding the conference, Mr. Nguyen Hong Hai commended the efforts of localities in compiling statistics and reviewing "three-no" fishing vessels. However, many localities revealed limitations in managing fishing vessels, with Ham Thuan Nam and Ham Tan being two localities with a very high percentage of unregistered fishing vessels. Therefore, in the coming time, for "three-no" vessels that have been registered, inspected, and have expired fishing licenses, localities need to focus on leading and directing the establishment of specialized teams to go to each commune to review and support fishermen in registering, inspecting, and issuing fishing licenses, and focus on completing this work by September 30th. Simultaneously, the Provincial Border Guard Command, in coordination with the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and localities, will take measures to handle unregistered fishing vessels to deter future violations. Regarding newly emerging groups of unregistered vessels, the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development needs to compile a report to the Provincial People's Committee before October 10th.
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