While chairing the 9th meeting of the National Steering Committee for IUU Fishing Prevention and Control in the southern province of Kien Giang on February 5, Quang, who is also head of the committee, suggested bringing serious violation cases to People's Courts for trial as a deterrent measure.
The MARD was tasked with continuing to arrange inspection teams and instruct localities in combating IUU fishing and reporting the results to the PM. Additionally, it should collaborate with relevant agencies and localities to increase more effective and widespread communications about the collective effort.
Specific tasks were also assigned to the Ministry of National Defence, the Ministry of Public Security and authorities of coastal cities and provinces.
At present, there are about 15,198 unregistered, unlicensed and technically-unchecked fishing vessels nationwide, with the highest number in the south central province of Binh Thuan, with 1,868 vessels.
Since the beginning of 2023, nearly 5,000 cases have emerged wherein vessels lost connection with the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) for more than 10 days. Only 8 out of 37 vessels detained by foreign countries have undergone verification and subsequent penalties, accounting for 21.62%.
To achieve the goal of having the European Commission's "yellow card" warning lifted this year, heads of ministries, agencies and localities were requested to fully fix shortcomings as recommended by the EC during its fourth inspection, ensure concrete results and data to work with the EC's fifth inspection team scheduled for April.
