Coastal localities make efforts to remove EC’s yellow card

Binh Dinh (VNA) – The south-central province of Binh Dinh is determined to have no local fishing boats violating foreign waters in the next six months before the European Commission (EC) reviews the “yellow card” against Vietnamese fisheries sector, according to Secretary of the provincial Party Committee Ho Quoc Dung.

Dung said that the province will strictly handle leaders of localities that see fishing vessels violating foreign waters, while not allowing boats with a length of less than 15m to conduct fishing activities.

He underlined the need to build a coordination regulations on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing prevention and combat between Binh Dinh and southern localities, along with the sending of a working team to localities where Binh Dinh fishing vessels are operating to give legal education for ship owners.

The provincial leader said that the locality will also focus on strengthening communications, increasing patrols and strictly handling violations.

Since 2020, Binh Dinh has seen 37 vessels violating foreign waters, mostly those going offshore from nearby localities.

Tran Van Phuc, Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said one of the reasons behind the situation is that some fishermen have been confused about the border at sea and the unclear demarcation of maritime border between countries in the region, especially in the southern waters of Vietnam, leading to violations in the overlapping areas.

Meanwhile, as part of the efforts to join hands in removing the EC’s yellow card, the south-central province of Binh Thuan has rolled out various measures to prevent IUU fishing.

Binh Thuan, having 192km coastline and 52,000 sq.km of sea water, has mobilised the engagement of the whole political system in the effort.

Along with issuing a number of policies and mechanisms to enhance the efficiency of IUU combat, including supporting ship owners to install vessel monitoring system (VMS), the province has focused on controlling the origin of fisheries products, and not allowed vessels without sufficient documents to go offshore.

In the first 11 months of this year, the province had supervised the handling activities of 4,951 fishing vessels, and confisticating 3,843 fishing record books.

The provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said that in order to put an end to the violations among the fishing vessels and fishermen, it will continue popularising fisheries law and encouraging fishermen and local residents to report suspected violations.
Alongside, it will strengthen its supervision and alerting capacity to call vessels with risks of violating foreign waters back.

So far, almost all fishing vessels of Binh Thuan have been equipped with VMS./.