Ministry to tighten inspections at fishing ports

The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development will tighten inspections at fishing ports nationwide due to pending problems relating to the entry/exit of fishing vessels, according to a representative from the Directorate of Fisheries under the ministry.

The office said, by October 2023, the country had 83,427 fishing vessels with a length of 6 metres or more. Over 72,200 vessels had registered and updated data on the VNFisbase database.

About 11,210 vessels had not registered or updated data on the database, a decrease of 3,393 compared to December 2022 as they were damaged and no longer physically exist. Meanwhile, authorities reported they had granted some 84,125 licenses.

In 2023, there are 76 storm shelters for fishing vessels in 28 coastal provinces and cities. The number of those facilities has reached 48.63% of planned and can offer services to just 43.76% of the total number of fishing vessels in the country. This data reveals that the construction of storm shelters is slower than planned.

According to the directorate, the management of aquatic exploitation activities at fishing ports still has problems and difficulties, for example, understaffing at fishing ports, lack of database software on fishing ports, or improper connection between fishing ports. In addition, fishing port authorities fail to receive data from vessel monitoring system equipment installed on fishing vessels.

Moreover, the inspection and control of fishing vessels entering and leaving the port, crew members on vessels and seafood outputs face limitations.

To improve the management of aquatic exploitation activities at fishing ports, the office proposed to the ministry to provide investment capital to build and upgrade fishing ports and storm shelters.

It also suggested a pilot implementation of specialised fishing port models and seafood auctions at fishing ports to increase the value of fishing products.

It also calls for a database software that connects fishing ports, allowing them to share information to serve management and direction work.

Localities are urged to unify models for managing fishing ports according to the provisions of the Fisheries Law to ensure maximum efficiency of fishing ports and meet urgent requirements to remove the EC's yellow card on Vietnamese seafood exports.

The directorate also emphasised the need to raise public awareness and engage the coastal community, relevant organisations and individuals to comply with legal regulations on illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.