On May 15, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh signed Official Dispatch No. 49 requesting ministries, branches and localities to focus on detecting, investigating and verifying information to handle violations of regulations on fishing vessel monitoring systems (VMS).
VMS related violations remain
The dispatch stated that after more than 6 years of synchronous implementation of tasks and solutions to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU fishing), and the removal of the "yellow card" warning from the European Commission (EC), the management of fisheries exploitation in our country has had positive changes, achieving many results, especially in the installation and operation of the VMS system. However, the situation of our fishing vessels illegally exploiting seafood in foreign waters is still complicated. The basic reason is that the number of fishing vessels required to install VMS equipment according to regulations is still lacking, and there are still many violations of VMS regulations, but the rate of violations being punished is limited. If fishing vessels that violate VMS regulations and fishing vessels that illegally exploit seafood in foreign waters are not strictly punished, the possibility of removing the "yellow card" warning in 2024 is very low, and may even be upgraded to a "red card" warning in the upcoming 5th inspection by the EC.
According to the report of the Ministry of National Defense , from March to April 2024, the East Sea areas were basically stable, but there were still many potential complications. Vietnamese fishing vessels violating foreign territorial waters still occurred, violating the waters of Malaysia and Thailand to illegally exploit seafood in 5 cases/10 vessels/57 fishermen (an increase of 1 case/1 vessel/20 fishermen compared to March 2024), of which 4 vessels were arrested by Malaysia due to using fake license plates (BKS) so they could not be verified. In addition, China and Cambodia controlled, prevented, and took property from 3 fishing vessels in the waters of the Hoang Sa archipelago and the historical waters of Vietnam - Cambodia; Cambodia used guns to shoot at 1 fishing vessel in the historical waters of Vietnam - Cambodia but did not cause any casualties. In addition, some fishermen still deliberately use tricks to violate the law such as: deleting fishing vessel registration numbers, using fishing vessels for sale without completing procedures according to the law, not completing departure procedures to violate foreign waters; turning off or removing VMS devices to transfer to other fishing vessels; people on fishing vessels do not have diplomas or professional certificates according to regulations; fishing in the wrong areas and routes; using electric shock, chemicals...; investigation and handling of violations still face many difficulties.
There are thousands of cases of VMS disconnection.
In Binh Thuan , although the installation of VMS equipment has been completed 100%, the loss of VMS connection while fishing vessels are operating at sea still occurs. Recently, the Provincial Border Guard announced a decision to administratively sanction 2 fishing vessels for not maintaining operation or disabling VMS equipment while operating at sea for fishing vessels with a maximum length from 15 m to under 24 m.
These are 2 fishing vessels that lost VMS connection while operating at sea for more than 10 days and were not in cases of force majeure as prescribed. Based on the verification process and violations, the Commander of the Provincial Border Guard has issued a decision to impose an administrative fine of 25 million VND/case. At the same time, the right to use the captain's certificate for a period of 4.5 months for Mr. Nguyen Van Long (born in 1976), residing in My Thang commune, Phu My district, Binh Dinh province, captain of ship BD 92539 TS and Mr. Truong Van Nga (born in 1988), residing in Phuoc Hai town, Dat Do district, Ba Ria - Vung Tau province, captain of fishing ship BV 90963 TS.
In recent times, the Ministry of National Defense has thoroughly grasped and directed the forces to strictly implement the direction of the Prime Minister, Head of the National Steering Committee on combating IUU fishing, to strengthen the patrol boat force, and control the sea areas bordering the countries in the South and Southwest. At the same time, many new solutions have been deployed to effectively combat IUU fishing, focusing on the peak period of activities until the EC's 5th inspection. Through the VMS monitoring system, the functional forces have detected, propagated, and directly called to remind 2,730 fishing vessels that lost VMS signals at sea; including warnings and requests for 2,034 fishing vessels operating near the sea boundary between Vietnam and other countries, not to violate foreign waters; called and reminded 86 ships that crossed the maritime border (77 ships in the Gulf of Tonkin area; 3 ships in the Vietnam - Thailand - Malaysia border area, 6 ships in the Cambodian sea area). After being reminded, the fishing boats returned to Vietnamese waters.
Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh has requested the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development to preside over and coordinate with relevant units to review the entire VMS system (including hardware and software), continue to add fishing vessel management features to ensure immediate and timely detection of cases of unauthorized disconnection and transfer of VMS devices to other vessels. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development shall establish a timely information sharing mechanism among relevant agencies to ensure that cases of fishing vessels violating VMS regulations are detected as quickly as possible, shared with relevant agencies for investigation, information verification, and consolidation of records for punishment according to regulations.
For the People's Committees of provinces and cities with fisheries, the Prime Minister requested to focus resources and funding to review and ensure that 100% of fishing vessels over 15m when participating in fishing at sea must install equipment and maintain connection to the VMS system according to regulations, to be completed in the third quarter of 2024.
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