Nghe An synchronously deploys solutions to remove EC's yellow card
On the morning of November 18, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha - Deputy Head of the National Steering Committee on Combating Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fishing (IUU) chaired the 22nd meeting of the Steering Committee.
At Nghe An bridge, comrade Nguyen Van De - Member of the Provincial Party Standing Committee, Vice Chairman of the Provincial People's Committee chaired. Attending the meeting were members of the Provincial Steering Committee.
Nghe An completed 14/19 tasks
According to the report of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, following the conclusion of Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh at the 21st meeting, ministries, branches and localities have focused on implementing the task of combating IUU fishing.
As of November 15, the total number of fishing vessels currently registered and updated in the National Fisheries Database (VNFishbase) is 79,360/79,360 fishing vessels (100%), the rate of licensed fishing is 76,811/79,360 fishing vessels.
The number of fishing vessels that do not meet operating conditions has been controlled by localities, assigned to communes/wards, forces, and management officers with fishing vessel mooring locations.
During the week, no fishing vessels violating foreign waters were arrested. The Ministry of Public Security has initiated 3 criminal cases against 4 defendants; brought 5 cases/12 defendants to trial. Accumulated from the beginning of 2024 to November 15, 2025, the police agency has initiated 91 criminal cases of IUU violations, prosecuted 136 defendants; brought 48 cases to trial, 101 defendants.
From the 21st to the 22nd session, the authorities discovered and handled 62 fishing vessels that lost connection to the vehicle monitoring system (VMS) and exceeded the permitted fishing boundary at sea.
As of November 15, 2025, ministries, branches and localities were assigned a total of 99 tasks. Of these, 55 tasks have been completed, 40 tasks are in progress and 4 tasks are behind schedule. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is the unit assigned the most with 32 tasks, has completed 24 tasks and is continuing to carry out 8 regular tasks. The Ministry of National Defense completed 8/10 tasks; the Ministry of Public Security completed 7/8 tasks; the Ministries of Justice and Finance also completed all assigned tasks.
Localities were assigned 19 tasks, of which 4 tasks were behind schedule, including: Issuing policies on job conversion and decommissioning fishing vessels that do not need to operate in the fisheries sector and policies to support fishermen in upgrading and replacing VMS equipment; completing handling of fishing vessels that lost VMS connection and exceeded the permitted fishing boundaries at sea; completing handling of fishing vessels that illegally exploited seafood in foreign waters and were arrested; completing 100% of fishing vessels with a length of 15 meters or more leaving and entering ports on the eCDT system.
In Nghe An, the province has completed 14/19 assigned tasks; currently performing 5/19 tasks. As of November 14, 2025, the total number of fishing vessels in the province is 2,632, of which 2,632/2,632 have been registered and updated on Vnfishbase (100%); 2,621/2,632 fishing vessels have been licensed to exploit aquatic products (accounting for 99.6%). The total number of exported and imported vessels is 168; the cumulative number in 2025 (up to November 14, 2025) is 7,333.
Results from January 1, 2024 to November 17, 2025, the total number of ships detected as having lost connection for 6 hours, lost connection for more than 10 days at sea, or exceeded the permitted exploitation boundary was 1,272 ships (1,269 ships lost connection, 03 ships exceeded the boundary); 1,298 ships were handled (26 ships lost connection in 2023) reaching 100%, of which 259 ships were punished (20%), 1,039 ships (80%) were closed.
Continue to deploy key task groups
Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha, Head of the National Steering Committee for IUU, acknowledged the efforts of ministries, branches and localities.
The Deputy Prime Minister also directed to urgently complete the project to build a synchronous, unified, interconnected, and shared national fisheries data system before December 31, ensuring that the data is "correct, sufficient, clean, and alive" and fully serves the management, traceability, and monitoring of fishing vessels, "clearly decentralizing authority for each subject, including the people, to access and declare". The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment was assigned to preside over and coordinate with technical experts to build the system's architecture, functions, and decentralization.
The Deputy Prime Minister assigned the Government Inspectorate to review all legal tools and sanctions for handling administrative violations related to IUU fishing, select a number of localities to inspect and provide guidance to handle 100% of outstanding cases.
Localities are required to review fishing vessels, ensure each vessel has its own data set, control vessels that are eligible to operate, revoke expired or unqualified vessel licenses, and implement measures to support fishermen.
Regarding port management, localities coordinate with the Ministry of National Defense and the Border Guard to identify qualified fishing ports, support private fishing ports to complete procedures, and move towards automating the registration process and certifying the origin of exploited aquatic products.
In the long term, ministries, sectors and localities need to assess livelihood transformation for fishermen, build sustainable fisheries policies, link reasonable exploitation with natural supply capacity, and at the same time promote high-tech offshore seafood farming and cooperate in seafood exploitation in international waters...
Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha requested ministries, branches and localities to strengthen inspection and supervision, resolutely not allow fishing vessels to go to sea, confiscate documents of fishing vessels that do not meet the requirements; continue to promote propaganda, raise awareness among fishermen; tighten fleet management, strictly control at fishing ports; complete records and data according to EC requirements.
At the same time, strengthen synchronous and close coordination among forces to thoroughly handle existing problems, aiming to remove the "yellow card" as soon as possible.
