Many fishing boats in Nghe An still lost VMS connection at sea.
(Baonghean.vn) - That was one of the issues raised at the online conference this morning (September 28) organized by the Standing Committee of the National Steering Committee on Combating Illegal Fishing under the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development with the participation of ministries, branches and coastal provinces.
The conference was chaired from Hanoi by Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien. Also attending were representatives of ministries and branches that are members of the National IUU Steering Committee, Departments and Offices under the Ministry and representatives of 28 coastal provinces.
Chairing the conference at Nghe An bridge was comrade Tran Xuan Hoc - Deputy Director of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development. Also attending were representatives of departments, branches, coastal districts and towns, the Provincial Border Guard Command and coastal border stations.
At the conference, on behalf of the leadershipMinistry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the leader of the Department of Fisheries reported the preliminary content of Decision No. 3929/2023 approving the Working Plan with the 4th EC inspection team on combating illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU).
Accordingly, in addition to the work that the Ministry and the National IUU Steering Committee do and dialogue with the EC, the Department of Fisheries notes that localities need to fully prepare the contents that the EC has recommended toremove yellow cardand focus on inspections such as: progress in handling fishing vessels that violate regulations, reports on tracing vessels with sudden increases in fishing output, results of inspections of the origin of some seafood export shipments by container; results of law enforcement, handling of fishing vessels that violate foreign waters...
Next, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phung Duc Tien reviewed a number of typical violations, thereby requesting IUU members, Departments under the Ministry and related provinces to update and report back to the Standing Committee of the IUU Steering Committee for review and understanding.
At the conference, representatives of ministries, branches and Departments under the Ministry reported and updated the handling of cases and previous recommendations made by the EC; difficulties and problems arising, in which, the most prominent is the newly issued Inspection Law, effective from July 1, 2023, regarding the unclear sanctioning authority of specialized inspection forces, causing difficulties for inspection and law enforcement work.handling IUU violationsso that the Standing Committee of the National IUU Steering Committee can handle or recommend handling, and report to the National IUU Steering Committee.
At the conference, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development also noted that Nghe An is one of the localities with many fishing boats losing VMS connection at sea.
Concluding the meeting, the Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development requested ministries, branches and localities, based on the Ministry's plan to work with the EC, to continue reviewing and thoroughly handling violations that have been recommended by the EC and raised in previous working sessions; to monitor and manage the fleet firmly, compare the number of registered vessels with actual fishing at sea, and compare with the national fishing vessel management system VNFISHBASE.
According to the plan, the EC working group will conduct field inspections and technical work from October 10 to October 18, 2023, of which, from October 11 to 15, they will work with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, a number of seafood exporting enterprises and conduct field inspections at designated fishing ports and a number of localities; on October 16-17, they will work technically with the Department of Fisheries Control, the Department of Fisheries, the Department of Animal Health, the Department of Quality, Processing and Market Development and related units; on October 18, they will exchange and have a high-level dialogue with the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and work with the Prime Minister, Head of the National Steering Committee for IUU Prevention and Control.