Chairing from the Hanoi bridge point was Mr. Phung Duc Tien - Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development. Also attending were representatives of ministries, branches who are members of the National IUU Steering Committee and 28 coastal provinces and cities.
At Nghe An bridge, comrade Nguyen Van De - Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee, Head of the Provincial Steering Committee on combating illegal fishing chaired the conference. Also attending were representatives of departments and branches who are members of the Provincial IUU Steering Committee.
Opening the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien briefly informed about the content of the Prime Minister's Official Dispatch No. 49/CD-TTg dated May 15, 2024. Accordingly, along with reviewing the results and positive changes over more than 6 years of synchronous implementation of tasks and solutions to combat IUU fishing violations, the fight against IUU fishing violations and the removal of the EC yellow card still has some limitations.
That is the situation of our fishing vessels illegally exploiting seafood in foreign waters is still complicated when there are still many fishing vessels violating VMS regulations, commonly when vessels reach the waters bordering other countries, they lose the VMS connection signal. Violations and disconnections are still common but not strictly handled and the rate is still low.
On the basis of pointing out a number of causes, the Prime Minister's dispatch pointed out the shortcomings and limitations, the biggest of which is that the competent authorities have not really paid attention to seriously, thoroughly and comprehensively implementing the assigned tasks and solutions; the heads of all levels, departments, branches and local functional forces have not really taken action...
To deal with IUU fishing violations and resolve to remove the EC's yellow card on Vietnamese seafood, the Secretariat issued Directive No. 32-CT/TW dated April 10, 2024 and the Government issued Resolution No. 52/NQ-CP dated April 22, 2024 outlining the Government's Action Program and Plan to implement Directive 32 of the Secretariat.
Recently, the Prime Minister requested ministries, sectors and localities to make more efforts and determination to remove the yellow card. This time, the Prime Minister requested ministries, sectors and localities to focus on inspecting and monitoring violations of the fishing vessel monitoring system (VMS) to serve as a basis for monitoring and strictly handling fishing vessels that violate foreign waters. The whole country is making efforts and determination so that from now until the EC's yellow card removal inspection scheduled for Vietnam in September-October 2024, there must be specific results and clear changes for the EC to acknowledge.
As of May 21, the whole country had 28,584 vessels installed VMS journey monitoring equipment, reaching 98.25%, of which Nghe An had 1,059/1,085 fishing vessels installed VMS, reaching 97.6%. Similarly, at the same time, the whole country had 17,248/28,584 fishing vessels with VMS connection signals, reaching 60%, of which Nghe An had 551/1,059 vessels, reaching 52%. As of May 21, 2024, the whole country still had 2,471/28,587 vessels that had lost VMS connection for over 6 months, accounting for 9%; in Nghe An, there were 96/1,059 vessels that had lost VMS connection for over 6 months, accounting for 8%. Since the beginning of the year, the whole country still has about 40 fishing vessels fishing illegally in foreign waters.
For the People's Committees of coastal provinces and cities, Official Dispatch 48/CD-TTg of the Prime Minister requires focusing resources and funding to review and ensure that 100% of fishing vessels over 15 m when participating in fishing at sea must install equipment and maintain connection to the VMS system according to the provisions of the Law on Fisheries and related documents, to be completed in the third quarter of 2024.
Localities are required to arrange qualified and professional staff to monitor each local fishing vessel on the VMS system; promptly detect, investigate and verify information to thoroughly and strictly handle cases of fishing vessels violating VMS regulations; resolutely and strictly handle organizations and individuals who intentionally violate the provisions of the law./.
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