HCM City (VNA) – The Vietnam Association of SeafoodExporters and Producers (VASEP) said a delegation from the European Parliament(EP)’s Committee on Fisheries visited Hanoi and coastal provinces from October28 to November 2 to examine Vietnam’s efforts to fight illegal, unreported, andunregulated fishing (IUU).

The delegation led by Gabriel Mato, MEP and committee spokesperson, had high-levelmeeting with the Prime Minister, the Vice Chairman of the National Assembly, ministers,and officials from concerned agencies.

After the fact-finding tour, the delegation spoke highly of Vietnam’sefforts and announced this on the media in Europe.

The delegation heard about enforced measures and newly-passed laws and met withofficials from the VASEP. They were provided with information about challengesand limitations facing the fisheries sector.

They hailed Vietnamese functional agencies and related fishing association forinvolving in discussions in an open, frank, cooperative and constructive manner.They said considerable improvements in the Law on Fisheries would surelyincrease the capacity of addressing and stopping IUU in Vietnam’s seas.

They visited new monitoring facilities, like the Fisheries MonitoringCentre in Hanoi and sea ports in Quy Nhon, Hai Phong and welcomed VASEP’spublication of the white book on IUU fighting in Vietnam.

They talked about the challenges facing the country, like the over-capacity operationand resources abuse of the rapidly-developing processing sector, and weak legalawareness, monitoring policy and management that let fishermen to go fishingoutside the Vietnamese sea and violate foreign waters.

The delegation recognized Vietnam’s political efforts in committing to dealingwith IUU issues and emphasized that the country has allocated sufficient human andfinance resources for the work.

Emphasizing the importance of the European Union-Vietnam Free TradeAgreement (EVFTA), they stressed the need to clarify the bilateral cooperationin the fight against IUU in the programme on sustainable trade development ofthe agreement.

They pointed out that it is important for Vietnam and the EU to continue theiropen dialogue so to work together in successfully addressing challenges fromillegal fishing activities in the wider world.

On October 23, 2017, the EC issued a "yellow card" warning toVietnam, after the country failed to demonstrate sufficient progress in thefight against IUU fishing.

Countries that fail to meet EC standards are given a "yellow card",followed by a "green card" if the problems are resolved, or a"red card" if they are not. A red card can lead to a trade ban onfishery products.

A working delegation of the European Commission (EC)’s Directorate-General forMaritime Affairs and Fisheries made a fact-finding trip to Vietnam late May toinspect the implementation of recommendations related to the fight against IUUfishing.

EC officials will return toVietnam in January 2019 to evaluate one more time before considering theremoval of the “yellow card” on Vietnamese seafood.-VNA