18 Quang Nam fishing boats lost connection in waters bordering the Philippines

On April 10, the Office of the People's Committee of Quang Nam province informed that the locality had sent an official dispatch to the Ministry of National Defense to direct functional forces to handle fishing vessels that lost connection to their journey monitoring devices in the area bordering the Philippines.

Quang Nam province currently has 569 fishing vessels operating offshore that have installed voyage monitoring equipment. Photo: LK

Currently, Quang Nam province has 569/571 fishing vessels registered for offshore fishing that are equipped with voyage monitoring devices. Of these, 56 are offshore squid fishing vessels (oceanic squid) mainly fishing close to the inner edge of Vietnam's waters and the waters bordering the Philippines.

Through monitoring on the fishing vessel monitoring system of the Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Surveillance (Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), many offshore squid fishing vessels lost connection to the journey monitoring device in the sea area permitted for exploitation by Vietnamese fishing vessels bordering the Philippine sea.

The People's Committee of Quang Nam province directed departments, branches, sectors and localities to meet directly with the families of fishing boat owners who lost connection at sea to propagate and disseminate regulations on combating IUU fishing, regulations on administrative and criminal handling of acts related to illegal exploitation, trading and transportation of aquatic products.

At the same time, ship owners or their relatives are required to urgently contact the above fishing vessels to quickly send a signal to monitor the journey in Vietnam's permitted fishing waters, and absolutely not to take fishing vessels to other countries' waters for fishing.

However, as of April 2, 18 out of 56 fishing vessels that have been disconnected for more than 10 days in the sea area bordering the Philippines have yet to show any signs of returning. While the province’s propaganda efforts against these vessels are currently ineffective, if this situation continues, the risk of some fishing vessels from Quang Nam province violating foreign waters is very high.

To promptly remedy the above situation, the People's Committee of Quang Nam province requested the Ministry of National Defense to direct the competent forces to promptly increase patrols and handle the above situation of disconnected fishing vessels. At the same time, it is required that these fishing vessels quickly have signals from their journey monitoring devices in the waters permitted for exploitation in Vietnam to avoid affecting the country's joint efforts to remove the "yellow card".

According to the list, 18 fishing boats that lost VMS connection for more than 10 days at sea are fishing boats in Nui Thanh district and Thang Binh district.

Source: https://nongnghiep.vn/18-tau-ca-quang-nam-mat-ket-noi-o-vung-bien-giap-ranh-philippines-d747623.html