Khanh Hoa (VNA) – The south-central province of Khanh Hoa has gained encouraging results from the pilot application of the eCDT software to track fishing vessels, including their locations and operations, helping prevent illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

In Nha Trang, fishermen are gradually becoming familiar with declaring information online instead of documentation at the Hon Ro fishery port, the largest of its kind in the south-central region.

Huynh Van Cam, owner of Vessel KH 93377 TS, said he has installed eCDT on his mobile phone, enabling him to quickly make declarations, including exploitation, registration, and food safety information, before every fishing trip.

He no longer has to wait and only needs to provide information once, which is conducive to handling port exit and entry procedures effectively, Cam noted.

Local authorities have also arranged tablet kiosks at representative offices of the fisheries inspectorate and surveillance forces at fishery ports across the province, including Hon Ro, Da Bac, Vinh Luong, and Dai Lanh to help fishermen handle procedures.

Nguyen Van Ba, head of the Management Board for the Hon Ro fishery port, said eCDT assists fishermen in processing port exit and entry procedures and reporting their catches in a quick, convenient, and precise manner while minimising mistakes in keeping logbooks.

The software is also useful to businesses in making and verifying dossiers before submitting official versions, thus saving time for tracing seafood origins or supplying information for inspection delegations or import partners when required.

The technology application to fishing vessel management has initially generated positive results. Though there remain several difficulties, once the software is perfected, it will help improve the efficiency of fishing activities and vessel management, Ba added.

The eCDT deployment is facing certain problems like the instability of some functions, slow data updates, and port staff’s lack of IT skills and knowledge.

To address those problems, the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has ordered its sub-department of fisheries to coordinate with related parties to upgrade infrastructure and give technical assistance.

So far, 197 accounts have been opened on eCDT while 66 port workers and hundreds of vessel owners assisted to install the software. Port exit and entry procedures have been handled via this system for more than 3,000 fishing vessel excursions.

Director of the department Nguyen Trong Chanh said the eCDT application also aims to help with the IUU fishing combat, as well as the efforts to persuade the European Commission (EC) to remove the “yellow card” warning for Vietnam.

At present, the vessel monitoring system and the eCDT still operate separately, so the department will propose the Directorate of Fisheries upgrade and integrate the two systems in order to facilitate vessel monitoring, he went on.

The official added the software deployment is an important step to help carry out the EC’s recommendations, thereby contributing to the preservation of marine resources and the fulfillment of international requirements in the IUU fishing combat.

Vietnam has been working hard within its own situation to carry out the EC’s recommendations regarding IUU fishing prevention and control, towards the goal of having the EC's yellow card lifted.

The EC issued a “yellow card” wa💃rning for Vietnam in 2017. The "yellow card" is followed by a "green♏ card" if the problem is resolved or a "red card" if it is not. A “red card” may lead to a complete ban on aquatic exports to the EU./.