HCM City (VNA) – Many seafood businesses ofVietnam have expressed their worries when there are only more than two monthsleft before the US’s Seafood Import Monitoring Programmes (SIMP) takes effect.

Vietnamese firms talked the issue withrepresentatives from the US’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration(NOAA) at a workshop held in Ho Chi Minh City on October 11.

Under the SIMP, the US is going to enhance monitoringthe fishing and import of 13 aquatic species from January 1, 2018, namelyabalone; Atlantic cod; blue crab; dolphinfish; grouper; king crab; Pacific cod;red snapper; sea cucumber; sharks; shrimp; swordfish; and albacore, bigeye,skipjack, yellowfin and bluefin tuna.

They are priority species listed in the SIMPwith a view to combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing andseafood fraud.

NOAA specialist Heather Brandon said the SIMPfeatures requirements for the licensing, reporting and recording data about theimport of some priority fish and seafood products which are assessed asvulnerable to IUU fishing or seafood fraud.

Michael Abbey, another representative of NOAA,said the SIMP regulations were set up not to cause obstacles for businesses ortrade activities between the US and other countries, but to fight IUU fishingand trade fraud.

After the European Union, the US is the world’ssecond seafood importer applying a seafood monitoring programme to combat IUUfishing. It is one of the biggest seafood importers with its fishery productconsumption valued at some 96 billion USD.

Vietnam exports about 1.5 billion USD worth ofaquatic products, including 350-400 million USD of seafood, to the US everyyear. Therefore, the SIMP requirements are worrying many Vietnamese companies.

Nguyen Thi Thu Sac, head of the seafoodcommittee of the Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers(VASEP), said the biggest problem facing businesses is the limited time to gearup for the SIMP regulations.

She said most of fishing boats in Vietnam aresmall, making it hard to collect information and make reports. Complying withthe SIMP is also more difficult for Vietnamese firms since many of them processand export products of various species, instead of a single species, at a time.

Seafood exports to the US are likely to declineonce the SIMP takes effect, Sac noted.

At the workshop, local enterprises showed theiranxiety as they hadn’t fully understood the SIMP requirements while there are toomany import monitoring programmes used by the US.

They also expressed their determination tocombat IUU fishing by taking part in an IUU fishing prevention programmeinitiated by VASEP.

As of the beginning of October, 59 businesseshad committed to only purchasing seafood materials with clear origin from boatsengaging in legal fishing and importing legally caught seafood.-VNA