Distributing documents on anti-IUU fishing to fishermen. (Photo: VNA)
Authorities of the southern Dong Thap province are clamping down on illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing, as part of the country's push to have the European Commission’s “yellow card” warning against Vietnamese seafood lifted soon.
The province tracks all offshore fishing vessels, with particular scrutiny on high-risk units, and routinely addresses boundary breaches. Regulators impose stiff fines on boats that lose signals for longer than six hours or operate for more than 10 days without transmitting data. To date, no vessel of Dong Thap has been nabbed for illegal fishing in foreign waters.
A list of high-risk vessels has been loaded into the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) database, allowing enforcement agencies to probe and penalise infractions under applicable rules.
Authorities have ramped up oversight of at-sea transshipments and levied harsh sanctions on ships involved in illegal fishing, unlicensed transshipment or skips on designated port landings.
They rolled out stringent protocols for verifying, certifying and tracing seafood catches. Falsifying export paperwork for the European Union market draws severe punishment. All catch volumes and port operations data are posted in full on the Directorate of Fisheries' Google Sheets platform to meet mandates.
The province requires all vessels to file catch declarations through the eCDT system upon port arrival and departure. It issues catch landing certificates (CC) and seafood origin certificates (SC) electronically, ensuring transparency and legality for export-bound products.
Dong Thap has stepped up enforcement drives, investigating and settling IUU violations such as intentional VMS cutoffs, tampering with or hauling monitoring gear, and poaching in foreign waters.
Vice Chairman of the provincial People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Dieu said no local vessels have strayed into foreign waters or breached limits since 2024.
The province has wrapped up registration for its full fishing fleet of 1,522 vessels, hitting 100% compliance. Every operational boat is registered, licensed, and inspected, fitted with VMS units and round-the-clock signal feeds according to rules.
Out of the 933 vessels slated for VMS setup, 898 are now equipped. The remaining 35 vessels have held off on installation amid operational halts./.
