Ba Ria-Vung Tau: The southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau has launched several specific tasks and measures to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
Accordingly, the province will raise public awareness of the importance of urgency of the fight against IUU fishing and sustainable fisheries development, implement policies to improve effectiveness of the state management in the IUU fishing combat; facilitate relevant forces’ inspection, examination and handling of violations at sea; synchronously amd effectively realise fisheries regulations; fix shortcomings and limitations as recommended by the European Commission (EC) in an effort to have its “yellow card” warning lifted in 2024.
It will effectively implement the Party’s resolutions and guidelines on sustainable development of Vietnam’s marine economy as well as planning schemes, strategies and national programmes on the sustainable development and international integration of the fisheries sector; improve effectiveness of international
cooperation, especially with European countries; apply strict measures to prevent local fishing vessels from fishing in foreign waters.
Nguyen Van Tho, Chairman of provincial People’s committee, said that in the coming time, the province will implement an action plan to fix shortcomings and limitations in the fight against IUU fishing, establish inspection teams to directly inspect localities and fishing ports; carefully prepare contents and scenarios serving working sessions with the fifth EC inspection team.
In addition, local competent forces will coordinate closely with law enforcement forces at sea to regularly exchange information, investigate and handle fishing vessels that have lost connections for more than six hours and more than ten days at sea, ships violating regulations on IUU fishing, and those illegally crossing maritime boundaries.
The province will develop a project to turn the locality into a national marine economic center, well implement a fishery development plan in line with the prov
incial master plan approved by the Prime Minister; continue to develop coastal aquaculture models in a high-tech, environmentally friendly manner, towards higher value and sustainable development in parallel with the conservation and protection of aquatic resources, tourism and services development, and protection of sea and island sovereignty.
According to the committee, so far, 97% of fishing vessels in the province have installed monitoring equipment; 85.63% are validly registered; and more than 96% are granted offshore fishing licenses. So far, provincial authorities have issued provisional registration numbers to 1,116 fishing vessels, or 97.89%, while the remaining 26 vessels will have them by April 30, 2024. Since August 2022, the province has reported no vessels illegally fishing in foreign waters./.
Source: Vietnam News Agency