All-out efforts needed to get IUU yellow card removed: Minister

Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan (Photo: VNA)

Competent ministries, sectors and localities should continue efforts to lift the European Commission’s “yellow card” against the Vietnamese seafood products for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, as an inspection team of the commission will visit Vietnam soon, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Le Minh Hoan.

He told the Vietnam News Agency that under a directive recently issued by Party Central Committee’s Secretariat, the whole political system is engaged in the fight against IUU fishing.

All of the EC’s recommendations on IUU fishing were included in the Law on Fisheries. However, the enforcement of the law has shown several challenges due to limited human resources of the fishery sector and loose coordination between localities in informing authorities of violated fishing vessels.

Hoan said he has required the Directorate of Fisheries and the Vietnam Fisheries Surveillance Force exercise management based on marine spaces instead of locality and keep a close watch on the journey of fishing boats be they leave and land at port in any locality.

Offshore fishing boats of Nghe An province (Photo: VNA)

With a view to successfully removing the yellow card in the EC’s next inspection, Hoan stressed that the country must thoroughly deal with the three major issues, namely fishing vessels infringing on foreign waters, boats turning off their VMS device, and vessels without registration and fishing licences.

He called on localities to take drastic measures and mete out strict punishment to any violations.

“Clamping down on IUU fishing is an initial step for Vietnam to restructure its fisheries, making the sector become more transparent, responsible and sustainable”, he said./.