In order to carefully prepare to receive and work with the EC Inspection Delegation to Vietnam for the 4th inspection, expected in October 2023, the People's Committee of Tien Giang province directed all levels and sectors to actively overcome shortcomings according to the suggestions of the previous Inspection Delegation on combating IUU fishing of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to resolutely prevent and eventually end the situation of fishing vessels and fishermen violating illegal fishing in foreign waters.

Tien Giang province has directed units to strictly control fishing boats entering and leaving ports and fishing boats leaving/entering ports at border posts/stations. (Illustration photo: PV/Vietnam+)

The province will urgently investigate, verify, and thoroughly handle the situation of brokers and collusion to bring fishing boats and fishermen to illegally exploit seafood in foreign waters (if any).

Localities strictly manage the fishing fleet; conduct a general inspection and review of the entire number of fishing vessels, grasp the number of registered, inspected, and licensed vessels; the number of unregistered, uninspected, or expired vessels; fishing vessels operating outside the province; fishing vessels that have not installed a fishing vessel monitoring system (VMS)... to ensure monitoring and supervision of all activities of the fleet, promptly handle violations in accordance with the law; especially the "3 no" fishing vessels.

The province directs units to strictly control fishing vessels entering and leaving ports, fishing vessels leaving/entering ports at border posts/stations; carry out registration, inspection, issuance of fishing licenses, fully update fishing vessel data into the national fisheries database (VNFishbase); prevent and strictly handle unqualified fishing vessels, especially fishing vessels that do not comply with VMS regulations, participating in fishing activities.

On the other hand, the certification of traceability of exploited aquatic products ensures legality; organizes specialized inspections and examinations of enterprises importing exploited aquatic products for processing and export to the European market.

Vice Chairman of Tien Giang Provincial People's Committee Pham Van Trong said that in order to proactively prevent and combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), Tien Giang has strengthened the provincial IUU Steering Committee and organized the signing of coordination regulations between relevant provinces to monitor and control local fishing vessels that regularly operate in other provinces; and arranged resources to strictly inspect and control fishing ports.

On the other hand, coordinate with the People's Committees of districts, towns and cities to resolutely and synchronously implement measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

The province focuses on disseminating the 2017 Fisheries Law and its implementing documents, and regulations on IUU fishing in the province in various forms, suitable to the reality of each locality.

In 2022 and August 2023, Tien Giang had no fishing vessels violating foreign waters arrested. In September 2023, the province fined 22 individuals nearly 160 million VND for violations of IUU fishing such as: captains and chief engineers not having diplomas or certificates as prescribed; incompletely recording fishing logs, purchasing and transporting aquatic products, removing journey monitoring equipment...

According to Vice Chairman of Tien Giang Provincial People's Committee Pham Van Trong, promoting the above achievements, in the coming time, Tien Giang will strengthen communication, propaganda, and dissemination to all subjects, organizations, and individuals involved in fisheries activities: ship owners, captains, crew members; seafood purchasing and processing warehouse owners to clearly understand the scope of Vietnam's sea areas, including overlapping sea areas that have not been delimited.

Localities identify the commune/ward/town level as the core force in managing, educating and propagating to people about combating IUU fishing, and must take primary, close, direct responsibility, and have a firm grasp of the management area; propagate and mobilize people to comply with the law, ensuring that "People know, people understand, people believe, people follow and people do."

Localities have plans to closely monitor and manage subjects, grasp the area to promptly detect and prevent fishing vessels from illegally exploiting seafood in foreign waters.

Tien Giang Provincial People's Committee assigned the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and relevant sectors to focus on reviewing and making statistics on local fishing fleets, entering fishing vessel data into the National Fisheries Database according to regulations, meeting the requirements for information lookup and management of fishing vessels entering and leaving fishing ports.

Strictly implement the quota of fishing licenses and direct specialized units to effectively exploit and use the fishing vessel monitoring system, strictly manage the activities of local fishing vessels at sea and effectively control fishing vessels entering and leaving ports, and monitor the volume of aquatic products loaded and unloaded through ports.

In addition, the unit continues to monitor and make a list of fishing vessels at high risk of violating IUU fishing and closely coordinates with localities according to Coordination Regulation No. 208/QCPH-UBND between provinces; coordinates with functional forces to investigate, verify, and thoroughly handle IUU fishing violations.

Specifically, such as incomplete fishing logs, disconnection of VMS devices, crossing maritime boundaries detected via VMS, violations of Fisheries Licenses, fishing vessels not docking at designated ports as prescribed, and violations of illegal fishing in foreign waters.

Currently, 100% of fishing vessels operating in the province are registered, inspected and marked in accordance with regulations; the rate of registration and updating of fishing vessel data on VNFishbase is 100% and the data of Tien Giang fishing vessels matches the data reported by the Department of Fisheries via VNFishbase software./.