Highest determination to remove IUU "yellow card".

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Installing journey monitoring equipment reached 98.25%

Assessing the effects of the EC "yellow card" on Vietnamese fisheries, Mr. Tran Dinh Luan, Director of the Department of Fisheries (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development) said that since the EC warned of the yellow card for Vietnam's exploited seafood products in October 2017, Vietnam's seafood export value to the EU market decreased by an average of 6-10%/year (depending on the year). Vietnam's second largest seafood import market, the EU (accounting for 17-20% of total seafood export value), has dropped to 5th place (after Japan, the US, Korea and ASEAN). Along with that, the EC's "yellow card" also greatly affects Vietnam's reputation, position and diplomatic relations in the international arena, causing socio-economic losses to the coastal fishing community ​​and businesses.

According to the Department of Fisheries Surveillance (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), after nearly 7 years of implementing the task of removing the EC's "yellow card", up to now, basic statistics have been conducted, capturing the total number of fishing fleets. The country currently has more than 86,800 vessels; the number of fishing vessels from 15m or more installed with cruise monitoring equipment reaches 98.25%. The work of verifying and handling IUU exploitation has had positive changes; many violations have been sanctioned according to regulations.

However, besides those advantages, the fishery control industry is also facing many difficulties because Vietnam is a country with many bordering and overlapping sea areas with countries in the region, and is negotiating and delimiting. Therefore, it is also difficult to propagate and guide fishermen on the scope of exploitation at sea.

Mr. Nguyen Quang Hung, Director of the Fisheries Surveillance Department, said that there are still some tasks that are moving very slowly and do not meet the requirements as recommended by the EC. In particular, the control and management of fishing vessels entering and exiting ports, entering and exiting wharves, and enforcing the law and handling violations of IUU fishing are not really effective, and do not ensure the strictness of the law and the integrity of the law. Coordination between local law enforcement forces and between localities is not tight and effective... There are still some shortcomings and limitations such as: registration and issuance of water exploitation licenses have not been completed such as, registration, installation of fishing vessel monitoring equipment (VMS) and final handling of "3 No's" fishing vessels. VMS installation has reached nearly 100%, however, the situation of fishing vessels disconnecting VMS and crossing maritime boundaries is common. In particular, the situation of fishing vessels and fishermen violating exploitation in foreign waters continues to be complicated and shows signs of increasing.

Very little time left

Speaking at the Conference summarizing the work of the first 6 months of the year, implementing plans and key tasks for the last 6 months of 2023 of the Fisheries Surveillance Department, Lieutenant Colonel Ngo Thanh Lam, Navy said, there are two reasons. The main reason for the violation of fishing grounds by fishermen is that aquatic resources are increasingly scarce and the awareness of some fishermen in fishing according to regulations is not high... In addition, enforcement forces laws are lacking and weak in infrastructure as well as maritime management capacity. Therefore, it is necessary to increase education and change the awareness of fishermen when fishing at sea, as well as improve techniques in the monitoring system of fishermen's fishing boats.

Agreeing with the above difficulties, Chief of Staff of the Coast Guard Command, Colonel Dao Anh Tu shared that when tracing their journeys, the status of violations of fishing grounds by fishermen is still high, many ships go fishing. It takes many months to dock, which also causes difficulties in management and handling of violations... In addition, the Coast Guard also often has to intervene in cases where foreign forces wrongly arrest fishing vessels of Vietnamese fishermen.

To solve the EC's "yellow card" problem, Colonel Dao Anh Tu said that it is necessary to share the cruise monitoring system as well as upgrade the monitoring management software to meet the actual situation at sea, minimize cases which people follow fishing channels and let their boats drift into foreign waters...

The time from now until the EC inspection team comes to Vietnam to consider the factors to remove the "yellow card" for Vietnam is very little, so according to the Director of the Fisheries Inspection Department, the immediate short-term solution is from now until October 2024, 4 groups of solutions must be synchronously deployed according to the EC's recommendations. The focus is on having solutions to prevent and stop violations by fishing vessels in foreign waters; must ensure that 100% of fishing vessels operating at sea must turn on cruise monitoring equipment, do not lose connection at sea to manage fishing vessels, and all shipments exported to the EC market must ensure legality and transparent. We still have to implement long-term solutions to develop a sustainable fisheries industry accompanied by green growth and international integration.

“We still have a chance to remove the IUU 'yellow card' warning in October, but with the current problems, we need to make 200-300% effort and deploy more synchronously and drastically. More solutions require coordination between the Central Government and localities, especially raising people's awareness," Director Nguyen Quang Hung said.