The government senior official made the request during chairing the 2nd meeting of the National Steering Committee on Against Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing held in Hanoi on October 15.
Since the European Commission (EC) drew a "yellow card" for Vietnamese fishery products exported to the European market on October 23, 2017 due to violations of the IUU rules, the Government, the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and relevant ministries, agencies and localities of Vietnam have drastically implemented the recommendations from the EC to remove the "yellow card" warning and fight against IUU fishing.
In particular, efforts have concentrated on four groups of recommendations from the EC, including urgently completing the legal framework to build a comprehensive control system for combating IUU fishing, strengthening the management of fishing vessels, promoting solutions to solve the situation of Vietnam's fishing vessels violating foreign waters, and enhancing the traceability of fisheries from fishing activities.
Local authorities in 28 coastal provinces and cities have achieved positive results in developing and implementing plans, resolutions and directives on fighting against IUU fishing, especially they have basically prevented and minimised fishing vessels violating fishing activities in foreign waters, such as in Quang Ngai, Tien Giang, Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa provinces.
Praising the efforts by relevant ministries, agencies and coastal provinces and cities in the work, Deputy PM Dung also asked for drastic and urgent solutions to prevent and eliminate IUU fishing activities, thus soon removing the “yellow card” warning from the EC.
Deputy PM Dung, who is also the head of the National Steering Committee, recommended that the Steering Committee members, especially the agricultural minister, should be well-prepared to welcome and work closely and effectively with the EC inspection team, who are scheduled to visit Vietnam in November to inspect the work. They were asked to inform the inspection team what Vietnam has done and the results achieved during the fight against IUU fishing activities.
Dung also asked related ministries, agencies and local authorities in the 28 coastal provinces and cities to continue to thoroughly grasp and focus resources to seriously implement the directives and instructions to prevent and eliminate IUU fishing, focusing on four key task groups, including close control, timely detection and strictly handling violations, especially fishing vessels committing illegal fishing in foreign waters.
They were asked to deploy the system of tracking, monitoring and controlling fishing vessels operating at sea, while strengthening the inspection, control, direction and administration of IUU fishing fighting.
In the long term, with the goal of developing a sustainable fishery industry, the sector must be restructured in the direction of gradually shifting from mainly fishing to aquaculture. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development was assigned to take the lead in making a master plan on planning aquaculture areas and planning investment in this field to soon report to the Government and the Prime Minister.
Deputy PM Dung also asked the concerned ministries and agencies to proactively inform and explain to the people in the country and the international community about Vietnam's solutions and results in their efforts to remove the "yellow card” warning from the EC.
