The National Steering Committee on Combating Illegal Fishing held an online meeting with coastal provinces and cities.
On the evening of October 14, in Hanoi, the National Steering Committee on Combating Illegal Fishing held an online meeting with coastal provinces and cities on the results of implementing measures to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in October.
Chairing from the Hanoi bridge point was comrade Tran Hong Ha - Member of the Party Central Committee, Deputy Prime Minister. Also attending were representatives of ministries, branches, members of the Steering Committee and coastal provinces.
At Nghe An bridge, comrade Nguyen Van De - Member of the Provincial Party Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired. Also attending were representatives of departments and branches who are members of the Provincial IUU Steering Committee.
Resolutely and proactively carry out assigned tasks
At the meeting, the representative of the Standing Committee of the National Steering Committee reported on the results of the implementation of the tasks assigned by the Prime Minister in the Notice of Conclusion No. 517/TB-VPCP of the Government Office dated September 26. Accordingly, along with advising on directive documents, urging, continuing to verify and inventory unregistered vessels, making a list of 235 fishing vessels at high risk of IUU violations, reporting to the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and assigning localities to closely monitor and supervise; the Ministry of Public Security has prepared a case file to prosecute violations and continue to classify and manage fishing vessels at high risk of anchoring on shore.
Discussing with ministries, branches and localities at the working session, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha requested ministries and branches to coordinate with network operators to apply technology to monitor fishing vessels. When implementing, localities must closely follow the Prime Minister's work assignment plan; the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment must immediately have solutions to increase the rate of declaration of aquatic product output caught at ports for traceability.
Other ministries and branches, according to their assigned functions and tasks, proactively carry out tasks, from verification, strict administrative sanctions, and if there are sufficient signs, prepare files for prosecution...
For localities, the Deputy Prime Minister requested to review the ports invested by the State and announce that they are qualified to require ships to enter the designated ports according to regulations. For the remaining ports, depending on the infrastructure conditions, ships can enter and exit the port conveniently.
High technology application to track and monitor fleet
Based on additional statements from a number of ministries and branches, the Deputy Prime Minister also noted that key media agencies need to increase the time spent on propaganda about the peak period against IUU fishing to welcome the EC delegation; at the same time, he requested localities to synthesize and report on the situation of problems.
Based on the directive document, Nghe An has a firm grasp of the number of 2,634 ships, a decrease of 1 ship; the number of ships inspected, licensed, and installed with VMS equipment is 1,038/1,041, reaching 99.71% and an increase of 9 ships; 1,404/1,118 ships have been inspected, reaching 99%, 14 ships have expired inspection, and 1 more ship has been deregistered. Accumulated from the beginning of the year to October 13, there were 527 ships that had their registrations deleted and were bought and sold, and had their names changed; 32 fishing boats were not qualified to operate.
At the meeting, Nghe An reported 4 outstanding results of the province after 2 weeks; at the same time, planned key tasks in the coming time, focusing on providing guidance on combating IUU fishing; ensuring 100% of fishing vessels activate eCDT and implement traceability; controlling 100% of fishing vessels entering and leaving the estuary and resolutely not allowing fishing vessels that are not qualified to leave the estuary.
On this occasion, like some localities, Nghe An proposed that the Government and the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment soon invest in upgrading the fishing vessel monitoring system at the Department of Fisheries and Fisheries Surveillance, as well as at the Fisheries Sub-Departments of provinces to enhance the application of technology, early detection of fishing vessels losing connection, and deploying software to automatically report location when vessels lose connection to VMS.
