Relating to the European Union (EU) market for “yellow card” for Vietnamese seafood and its re-testing in January 2019, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development requested the localities to withdrawall Movimar equipment, a satellite positioning device that was installed on fishing vessels less than 24 meters in length to be installed on fishing vessels of 24 meters in length or more.
For localities having off-shore fishing vessels, after carrying out the withdraw and installation of Movimar equipment as mentioned above, the remaining cases shall be transferred to the Fisheries Surveillance Department for allocation to localities having fishing vessels of 24 meters in length or more, but not yet installed the equipment.
The source said that the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has directed that the installation of such equipment must be completed before October 2018.
Meanwhile, the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (VASEP) said that Vietnam has about 110,000 fishing vessels, of which there are about 33,000 offshore fishing vessels (capacity of 90 CV or more), but only about 3,000 vessels are equipped with Movimar satellite positioning equipment.
In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development also asked the owner or the captain of the vesselswhich has been installed Movimar equipment to open the equipment 24/24 hours when fishing in the sea.
In addition to the above mentioned requirements, for overcoming the yellow card, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) has requested the localities and related departments in the last months of 2018 to take specific measures to carry out control of fishing vessels off ports and at ports; To well implement the mechanism of coordination and handling among sea inspection and control forces when detecting fishing vessels in violation of foreign sea areas; To take drastic measures such as withdrawing fishing permits, refusing to grant new fishing vessels owners in violation of foreign sea areas and being arrested or detectedin the cruise control system.
Previously, from 16 to 24 May 2018, the inspection team of the Department of Fisheries and Marine Affairs of the European Commission (EC) has worked in Vietnam to check the implementation of its 9 recommendations to address illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
As a result, the inspection team said that the recovery of IUU has not been significantly improved, especially weak in practice. Therefore, the EU decided to continue applying the “yellow card”for Vietnamese seafood and will re-examine to decide whether to issue green card for Vietnamese seafood in January 2019 or not.
Nhu Nguyet