Dong Thap Highly Proactive in Implementing IUU Fishing Countermeasures
(DTO) On the afternoon of September 9, an inspection delegation from the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), led by Mr. Nguyen Phong Nha, Deputy Director General of the Authority of Telecommunications, conducted an unannounced inspection into illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing countermeasures in Dong Thap Province.
At the meeting, a representative of the Dong Thap Department of Agriculture and Environment (DAE) reported on local results in the fight against IUU fishing.
Accordingly, the province has registered and updated 1,482 fishing vessels measuring 6 meters or longer on VNFishbase, achieving a 100% completion rate, while the vessel identification rate reached 99.9%. Out of 900 vessels required to install Vessel Monitoring Systems (VMS), 875 have complied. The remaining 25 uninstalled vessels are mostly subject to court judgments, sunken, damaged, or defunct.
From January 1 to September 4, 2026, local fishing ports cleared 701 vessel arrivals with 3,928 port calls, and 692 vessel departures with 4,026 turns. The total catch unloaded through these ports exceeded 28,900 tons. Notably, 100% of fishing vessels entering, leaving, or clearing border guard stations were monitored via the eCDT, VMS, and VNeID applications.
Over the past period, law enforcement and punishment of IUU violations have been stringent, thorough, and timely. Since the beginning of the year, authorities have verified and penalized 76 violations, imposing fines totaling over 5.1 billion VND. Significantly, Dong Thap has recorded no foreign-water fishing violations since 2024.
Alongside positive results, fleet monitoring via VMS faced disruptions, with persistent signal losses driven by satellite glitches, weak coverage zones, or delayed data synchronization by service providers to the central monitoring system.
Dong Thap requested the inspection delegation to propose that the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment soon issue a national technical regulation for fishing vessel VMS devices. Concurrently, authorities should intensify inspections and strictly penalize underperforming VMS providers, specifically targeting signal drops caused by satellite issues.
Delivering concluding remarks, Mr. Nguyen Phong Nha acknowledged the proposals and obstacles in IUU fishing prevention efforts in Dong Thap.
According to Mr. Nguyen Phong Nha, the inspection showed that the locality has been highly proactive in executing its set tasks and targets. However, during enforcement, certain legal regulations have fallen short of practical realities, while various unprecedented field scenarios have triggered operational bottlenecks. Therefore, the inspection delegation requested the province to continue reviewing, refining, and providing detailed feedback on these specific issues.
Mr. Nguyen Phong Nha also requested officials to continue reviewing European Commission (EC) recommendations, especially those related to the recent inspection round, to ensure any outstanding proposals are fully integrated into the final report.
The locality must immediately send a written request to the Department of Fisheries and Department of Fisheries Surveillance regarding software issues, particularly platforms serving data interconnectivity, system exploitation, and incident resolution. Another key requirement is to overhaul internal procedures. Whenever new documents, circulars, or guidelines are issued, practical training must be organized for officials and specialists.
By M. THANH
Translated by X.QUANG
