Hanoi (VNA) 🗹- A delegation of the European Commission (EC) is scheduled to visit Vietnam from October 10 to 18 to work on the “yellow card” warning over IUU fishing. Therefore, localities are ramping up efforts to carry out the recommendations that the EC issued during the previous inspection.

Punishments must be deterrent enough

After the latest inspection in October 2022, the EC delegation recommended Vietnam focus on four groups of issues, namely the legal framework, examination of fishing vessels, origin tracing, and law enforcement. In terms of the legal framework, the EC said Vietnam has basically met international requirements for anti-IUU fishing. However, to continue tightening management and boosting the effectiveness of anti-IUU fishing rule enforcement, it is necessary to issue regulations on the vessels carrying fishery imports to ensure they are not from fishing outside territorial waters, and impose fines on the vessels that do. Particularly, the EC delegation noted punishments must be quick, deterrent, and effective enough, and that fines must be much higher than benefits gained from rule violations. Vietnam should also consider prosecuting those committing serious or repeated infringements. Tran Dinh Luan, Director of the Directorate of Fisheries under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the “yellow card” removal is an important issue that has engaged the entire political system. Legal regulations have been perfected in line with Vietnamese law. However, the problem is how those rules are enforced in localities. Particularly, though detailed instructions about vessel management and monitoring system installation were released, infringements of foreign waters still occur, Luan pointed out. While some localities have performed well in this regard and imposed fines of up to 1 billion VND (40,900 USD), others haven’t been drastic enough. This can affect IUU fishing eradication results. Therefore, localities need to stringently deal with wrongdoings in accordance with law, instead of just giving warnings or requiring fishermen make commitments, the official added.

Stepping up implementation of EC recommendations

Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien noted Vietnam has carried out many of the recommendations issued by the EC during the third inspection, and received high evaluation. However, he went on, vessel management and monitoring remain a big challenge. There are about 30,000 vessels that are over 15 metres long nationwide at present. Violating vessels have declined considerably but still exist, so localities should increase fines. Many provinces have shown strong determination in dealing with violations, Tien said, taking Kien Giang province as an example which has prosecuted some IUU fishing cases. During the first nine months of 2023, Tien Giang province fined 22 persons nearly 160 million VND for illegal fishing. Thanks to that, it has yet to record vessels detained overseas for infringing foreign waters this year. As the EC inspection delegation is coming to Vietnam soon, the 28 coastal provinces and cities are racing to summarise the implementation results of the EC recommendations so as to show the country’s efforts toward irradiating illegal fishing. Deputy Minister Tien stressed that Vietnam is taking strong steps to carry out the EC recommendations in order to prove its seriousness towards IUU fishing eradication./.