Thanh Hoa province enhances monitoring of fishing boats

Thanh Hoa (VNA) – The central coastal province of Thanh Hoa has taken drastic measures to better monitor fishing boats, towards the removal of the “yellow card” warning by the European Commission (EC).

Competent forces in coastal areas such as Hau Loc, Hoang Hoa, Quang Xuong, Sam Son city and Nghi Son town have regularly organised meetings with boat owners and captains, asking them not to operate in foreign waters but maintain contacts while going offshore fishing.

Apart from the communications work, Thanh Hoa also urged owners of big fishing boats to sign commitments, and keep a close watch on fishing trips of their boats.

Since 2022, local competent forces distributed 25,000 leaflets and 6,000 handbooks, and organised 10 training courses for nearly 1,050 fishermen on legal regulations on the exploitation and protection of maritime resources, and the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

The fishery bureau under the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development is coordinating with localities in reviewing all fishing boats in Thanh Hoa in order to accelerate the registration and the installation of the vessel monitoring system (VMS).

Le Van Sang, deputy head of the bureau, said in the first three months of this year, the forces handled 33 cases of violation of fishing regulations, and the department unveiled the list of 183 fishing boats that are likely to commit the violations.

Up to 1,121 out of the 1,151 fishing boats in Thanh Hoa have been equipped with the monitoring systems, and 1,796 out of the 1,980 vessels have been granted with fishing licences./.