Conference promotes solutions to soon remove the "yellow card"

On August 29, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang chaired an online conference of the National Steering Committee on preventing and combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing with 28 coastal provinces and cities to promote solutions to combat IUU. Attending at the provincial bridge were comrade Nguyen Long Bien, member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee; leaders of relevant departments, branches, units and localities.

After nearly 6 years of implementing anti-IUU solutions, following the European Commission's (EC) recommendation to remove the "yellow card" warning, the anti-IUU work has had many positive changes. Nationwide, there are 86,820 fishing vessels with a length of 6 m or more, a decrease of 9,789 vessels compared to 2019. Of which, there are 30,091 fishing vessels with a length of 15 m or more, a decrease of 1,206 vessels compared to 2019. Currently, 31 provinces and cities with 71,658 vessels have updated the Vnfishbase data software on national fisheries data exploitation and 28,753 vessels with a length of 15 m or more have installed voyage monitoring equipment, reaching 97.86%. The authorities have completed the entry and exit procedures for 550,979 fishing vessels, inspected and controlled 121,042 fishing vessels operating on rivers and seas... However, from the fourth quarter of 2022 up to now (after the third inspection), the implementation of the EC's recommendations as well as the tasks and solutions under the direction of the Prime Minister, Head of the National Steering Committee for IUU still has many shortcomings and is slow to overcome. Specifically, the registration of fishing vessels and issuance of fishing licenses have not been completed; updating fishing vessel data into the national fisheries database is incomplete; the situation of fishing vessels disconnecting their journey monitoring devices still occurs...

Comrade Nguyen Long Bien, member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee attended the conference at the provincial bridge.

Concluding the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Luu Quang requested relevant ministries, branches and coastal provinces and cities to uphold their sense of responsibility and be more determined in combating IUU, especially not allowing Vietnamese fishing vessels to go abroad to fish and exploit seafood, and join hands to remove the "yellow card" warning in October 2023. At the same time, each locality needs to enhance the spirit and responsibility of officials in managing and supervising the implementation of tasks according to regulations on combating IUU; direct functional forces to increase patrols, inspections, supervision, and strictly handle violations to deter; promote propaganda and dissemination of regulations of the Fisheries Law so that people in coastal areas clearly understand and do not violate legal regulations on IUU, preserve reserves and ensure biodiversity in the sea, towards sustainable exploitation of aquatic and marine products...

Xuan Nguyen

Source