'The Chairman of Kien Giang said, I signed to confiscate the ship and cried'

At the discussion session of the 6th session of the 15th National Assembly on the socio -economic situation, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang spent more than 10 minutes discussing the issue of removing the "yellow card" for IUU seafood - illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing.

There is a "contagion" to other markets.

Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang informed that nearly 6 years ago (2017), the European Commission (EC) issued a "yellow card" warning for IUU fishing to Vietnam. According to him, this has caused many obstacles to Vietnam's seafood export activities. But more importantly, there is now a "contagious mentality" spreading to other markets such as Japan, South Korea, and the US.

'Ông Chủ tịch Kiên Giang nói, em ký tịch thu cái tàu mà rơi nước mắt' - Ảnh 1. — Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang speaks at the group discussion on October 24.

"If these markets also apply a "yellow card" to us, it will be miserable for fishermen as well as businesses that do preliminary processing and export seafood," said Mr. Quang.

The Deputy Prime Minister said that Vietnam had just received an inspection delegation from the EC two weeks ago. The final result was that the EC had not yet removed the "yellow card" for Vietnam.

The EC inspection team noted that Vietnam is very active, determined, and has strong policies, but the implementation is still not up to the mark. It is expected that around May next year, the EC inspection team will return to inspect again.

Mr. Quang noted that if this opportunity is not seized, the EC will change its term and organizational structure; there will be another committee and other personnel in charge of this work.

"Thus, it will take at least another 3 years for us to discuss this story again, according to many people's predictions," said the Deputy Prime Minister, adding that if that scenario happens, Vietnam will be one of the "record" countries, taking about 10 years to remove the IUU "yellow card".

"We will try our best in the remaining 7 months. I was assigned to be directly in charge of this and it was a headache for me, because this is a very difficult task," said the Deputy Prime Minister.

"Can't keep chasing like this forever"

According to Mr. Tran Luu Quang, there are many reasons why fishermen have to exploit seafood illegally, even though they don't want to, but "the biggest reason is profit". "There are many ships, no seafood resources, bank debts, and stressful life, so there are stories of people secretly running to the other side", Mr. Quang stated the reality.

Mr. Quang also added that the reason is that management is still poor; in addition, our functional forces, the coast guard and border guards are also thin, so it is very difficult to control.

"Our legal system also has circumstances and provisions that cannot be handled," Mr. Quang said, citing that the People's Court of Kien Giang province recently tried a case but it was dismissed at the Ho Chi Minh City High Court, and the People's Committee of Kien Giang province lost. On the contrary, according to Mr. Quang, there are some cases where we won the case, and according to regulations, we were able to confiscate the people's ships, but "in fact, the confiscation of ships is an extremely heartbreaking story."

"The Chairman of Kien Giang People's Committee told me: I'm reporting to you, I signed the decision to confiscate this ship and I cried. But after signing, I still couldn't get the ship back because the ship belonged to the bank, not the fisherman," the Deputy Prime Minister said, sharing that this was a "very difficult" story.

"But we can't keep chasing each other like this forever. Our people are all in difficult situations and we have a responsibility to them," said Mr. Quang.

However, according to the Deputy Prime Minister, how to organize aquaculture now, how to convert occupations, how to regulate mesh standards... "It's all a very long story," Mr. Quang said, and said that this is a rather difficult story to solve, if it cannot be solved, the development of the aquaculture industry will face many difficulties.

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