New decrees contribute to perfecting anti-IUU fishing regulations

HÀ NỘI – The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development held a conference in Hà Nội on Friday to popularise the contents of new regulations on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing prevention and combat.

According to the Directorate of Fisheries, the Prime Minister has recently issued new regulations under the Fisheries Law which detail sanctions on administrative violations in fisheries.

Director of the directorate Trần Đình Luân said that major new regulatory contents include more flexible administrative procedures in case of natural disasters or epidemics where it is impossible to organise on-site inspections and assessments serving the issuance of licences, certificates and approval of documents, reality assessments and supervision. In those cases, evaluation activities will be conducted online, along with the procedures for registration of aquaculture farming, and the announcement of the closure and opening of fishing ports, he said.

Regarding fishing boat monitoring, the decree clarifies the responsibility of central and local agencies in managing and use of the vessel monitoring system (VMS), as well as the responsibility of VMS suppliers.

The decree has an additional regulation on observers on Vietnamese fishing vessels operating in Việt Nam's territorial waters to create a legal framework to maintain and promote Việt Nam's seafood exports to the US.

It adjusts and supplements a number of regulations on controlling foreign vessels’ activities exploiting and transporting aquatic products originating from Vietnamese ports, and controlling seafood and aquatic products imported into Việt Nam.

Luân said the new regulations increase the prescription for sanctioning administrative violations in the fisheries sector to two years, along with stricter punishments on repeated violations, and the power of rangers on imposing punishments on violations of regulations on the protection of aquatic resources in national parks and conservation areas.

Heads of the Departments of Fisheries, Chairpersons of People's Committees of provinces, districts and communes, police, border guards, coast guards, customs, market management, fisheries inspection forces, forestry rangers, inspection and agencies assigned to perform specialised inspections are also permitted to handle such violations, according to the decree.

Addressing the conference, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development Phùng Đức Tiến said that with increasingly effective legal tools, all localities should work hard to join hands with central agencies in seeking the European Commission (EC)’s removal of the “yellow card” against Việt Nam’s seafood exports.

The official noted that progress has been seen in IUU fishing prevention and combat, but there is still much work to do.

Localities should continue to focus on supervising their fleets, trace the origin of seafood products and strictly handle violations according to the new regulations, he underlined. VNS