Facing difficulties to remove seafood "yellow card"

Exports dropped sharply because of "yellow card"

In October 2017, the EC gave the"yellow card" for Vietnamese seafood products exported to the EU market because it has not complied with the regulations on IUU fishing. This hashada great impact on business activities, because this is the second largest seafood export market of Vietnam (always accounting for over 17% of total export turnover over the years). EC's "yellow card" warning made public on websites has seriously discredited Vietnam's seafood, thereby increasing the risk of US and other potential markets actingsimilarly.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung, Deputy Director General of the General Department of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), said: Currently, Vietnam's seafood shipments to EU are inspected 100%with detention for about 3-4 weeks per container. In addition to the cost of checking the origin of about £500 per container, businesses also have to pay many fees as well as discredit to customers due to slow delivery of products.

After two years of EC’s"yellow card" for Vietnam's exploited seafood, Vietnam's seafood export to EU market in 2018 was only $390 million, down 6.5% and continued to keepthat level in 2019. From the secondposition in the seafood import markets of Vietnam, after the "yellow card", the EU market has dropped to 5th and the proportion of the market decreased from 18% to 13%.

Recently, despite many efforts to overcome the recommendations of the EC to remove the "yellow card" for seafood exports, the achieved results are not as expected because of many limitations. Typically, traceability has not met the EC's requirements for the chain of legality control of products exported to the EU market.

In 2019, 44cases of information related to the certification of the origin of fishery raw materials harvested to the EU market were proposed to verify. In addition, the control of foreign ships arriving at Vietnamese ports to import fishery products is weakand has not implemented the provisions of Article 70, Decree 26/2019/ND-CP guiding the Fisheries Law. The current control mechanism does not guarantee the legal origin of a large proportion of processed products in Vietnam.

The General Department of Fisheries give more detailed information. The situation of Vietnamese fishing vessels violating foreign waters has not shown any signs of abating and continues to be complicated. In 2019, there were 138 cases out of 220 Vietnamese fishing vessels seized and handled by foreign countries, of which the competent authorities identified 93 cases and 144 fishing vessels seized and handled due to maritime violations of countries in the region. Meanwhile, the application of new administrative sanctions in the field of fisheries for cases of violations of foreign waters is limited (only one case has been handled). The application of sanctions against fishing vessels violating foreign waters has not been consistent among localities.

"This is one of the main problems that the EC has not removed the"yellow card"warning for Vietnam or even raised the"red card"warning in the next inspection if the situation has not been improved,"the Directorate of the General Department of Fisheries emphasized.

Prevent infringing fishing vessels

According to the plan from May 25 to June 5, the Delegation of the General Department of Marine and Fisheries Affairs of the EC (DG-Mare) will cometo Vietnam to check the implementation of the EC’srecommendations against IUU fishing.

Currently, by grasping the situation of the concerned ministries and branches, it is shown thatthere is a lot of information from foreign countries, relevant group andthird countries competing with Vietnam to export seafood products to the EU market. That has adversely affected Vietnam's efforts to remove the "yellow card", pressured the EC not to remove the "yellow card" for Vietnam or even proposed to implementthe "red card". The reason given is that Vietnam is slowly overcoming the shortcomings and limitations in the implementation of international regulations on IUU fishing.

MARD said that in the future, one of the prerequisites for Vietnam to remove the "yellow card" warning is to stop illegal fishing vessels in foreign waters.At the same time, we have to focus on overcoming the shortcomings and limitations pointed out by the EC Inspection Delegation through the second inspection in Vietnam.

Facing the above situation, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong proposed coastal localities to thoroughly prevent IUU fishing, especially to prevent and stop Vietnamese fishing vessels' violations of marine exploitation in foreign waters. The law stated clearlyit must be firmly implemented. "Why don't provincial leaders look back to why there are only a few provinces out of the 28 coastal provinces and cities that still have violations, including those in their own provinces?" Minister Cuong asked.

In addition, the "commander" of the agriculture sector also requires localities to focus on overcoming the shortcomings in the control of fishing vessels going in and out of ports, ensuring 100% control of the output at the fishing ports designate and recover 100% of the fishing logs of fishing ships docked for fishing, tracing aquatic products exported to the EU market.