Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Hong Hai and leaders of relevant departments and branches received and worked with the delegation. In addition, online connections were also made to coastal districts, towns and cities in the province.

At the meeting, Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development - Nguyen Van Chien briefly reported on the work of combating IUU fishing in the province. Accordingly, in the past time, Binh Thuan identified combating IUU fishing as a key and urgent task, mobilized the entire political system to participate, and seriously implemented the direction of the Standing Secretariat, the Prime Minister, and the National Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing. In particular, focusing on implementing tasks and solutions to combat IUU fishing according to the direction from the Central Government, Directive 32 of the Secretariat... Thereby, the work of combating IUU fishing in the province achieved certain results.

Apart from the case of a fishing vessel violating the law that was arrested by Malaysia in early 2023 (the province has administratively fined the vessel owner VND 900 million), so far there have been no more fishing vessels violating foreign waters. In addition, the province has directed the organization of a peak period of general inspection, statistics, classification, and screening of "3 no" fishing vessels in each hamlet, village, and commune in the province's coastal areas. To date, statistics have been collected and temporary registrations have been granted to 2,348/2,515 "3 no" fishing vessels and the list has been sent to functional forces and localities for strict monitoring and management, not allowing them to leave port for exploitation without completing the prescribed procedures.

Besides, Registered 5,935 fishing vessels with a length of 6 meters or more and updated them in the national fishing vessel database VNfishbase; inspected 3,261/3,855 fishing vessels with a length of 12 meters or more, reaching 84.59% (all inspected fishing vessels are marked according to regulations); focusing on re-issuing fishing licenses according to Decree No. 37/2024/ND-CP.

Notably, Binh Thuan has completed 100% of the installation of VMS equipment. Through monitoring on the fishing vessel monitoring system, from October 2023 to present, Binh Thuan has had 69 cases of losing connection for more than 6 hours without reporting location to the shore station; 43 cases of losing connection for more than 10 days at sea (21 cases have been verified and punished; the remaining 22 cases are being verified and handled); 204 cases of losing connection for more than 6 months...

At the working session, the working delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture, including representatives of the Department of Fisheries Control, the Department of Fisheries and the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Product Quality Management, pointed out the shortcomings and limitations after the inspection at La Gi fishing ports, Phan Thiet fishing ports, and the provincial Fishing Vessel Monitoring Center.

Thereby, it is recommended that the Provincial People's Committee pay attention and direct the relevant agencies to promptly overcome shortcomings according to the EC's recommendations such as: the process of monitoring fishing vessels entering and leaving the port is not in accordance with the correct procedures, many lost connections detected through the fishing vessel monitoring system but the handling of violations is still limited, it is necessary to more strictly control the group of vessels at high risk of violating foreign waters; recording and submitting fishing logs and tracing the origin of aquatic products still do not meet the requirements...

Concluding the working session, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien highly appreciated the efforts that Binh Thuan has made in implementing the fight against IUU fishing in recent times.

At the same time, localities are required to strictly manage and monitor the fleet, classify specific vessels and strictly handle IUU violations, with no “no-go zones” or exceptions. Regarding the traceability of aquatic products, it is necessary to monitor the fishing log to record correctly, completely and accurately the fishing area, type of aquatic products, output, etc.

The Deputy Minister suggested that the province needs to implement more drastic and synchronous solutions to meet the requirements and overcome the recommendations of the EC. In addition, the locality is required to allocate resources, monitor and supervise 100% of fishing vessels with a length of 24 m or more operating at sea through the fishing vessel monitoring system, clearly understand and strictly handle each case of violation of regulations on loss of connection to the fishing vessel monitoring device.

In addition, the Deputy Minister also emphasized that there are only 3 months left for localities to complete the contents according to the EC's recommendations. Therefore, from now until September is the time for the entire political system to focus on the fight, to unite in the fight against IUU fishing for the national interest, the interests of the people, because the upcoming 5th inspection by the EC is the last chance for Vietnam to remove the "yellow card".

On behalf of the provincial leaders, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee Nguyen Hong Hai thanked the working delegation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development for having a working session with Binh Thuan province and pointing out the shortcomings and limitations in the implementation of the EC's recommendations on IUU fishing. Thereby, with high determination, the Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee requested the relevant agencies to promptly overcome the shortcomings pointed out by the working delegation, joining hands with the whole country to remove the "yellow card" this year.