A fishing ship owner and an officer of the Phu Yen provincial Border Guard Command inspect the vessel monitoring system (VMS) on a fishing boat. (Photo: VNA)  

The People's Committee of the south-central province of Phu Yen has required relevant authorities and coastal localities to implement various solutions to eliminate “three-no's” vessels (no registrations, no checks, no licences), contributing to the country’s efforts to have the European Commission (EC)’s “yellow card” warning against Vietnamese seafood lifted soon.

In the rest of this year, localities will establish working groups to support and guide owners of unregistered fishing vessels, those with expired fishing licenses and technical safety certificates to complete registration procedures in line with regulations.

To ensure strict management of fishing vessels that do not meet requirements for seafood exploitation, the committee has directed authorities of coastal districts, towns, and Tuy Hoa city to coordinate with border guards and relevant agencies to closely monitor and identify the specific locations of anchored boats.

The province has also coordinated with Region 3 Marine Police to enhance patrols, inspections, and control of fishing vessels and fishermen to promptly detect and address boats violating foreign waters, while also promoting campaigns to raise public awareness of fighting illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing activities.

The committee has also suggested the Government and relevant ministries and sectors allocate budget sources to invest in several fishing ports to meet conditions for fishing vessels to unload aquatic products, towards making it easier to monitor fishing vessels and aquatic product output.

According to Dao Quang Minh, Director of the provincial Department of Fisheries, with the determination to combat IUU fishing, authorities of the province and coastal localities have coordinated in closely monitoring and controlling the activities of fishing vessels at sea through the vessel monitoring systems (VMS).

As a result, since 2019, Phu Yen has recorded no fishing vessels violating foreign waters, Minh said.

Phu Yen province has a total of 2,847 fishing vessels, with 1,967 of them having their data updated on the national fisheries database (Vnfishbase)./.