Fishing boats dock off Tiên Hải Island in Kiên Giang Province’s Hà Tiên City. – VNA/VNS Photo Hồng Đạt

KIÊN GIANG – All operating fishing boats with a length of at least 15 metres in Kiên Giang Province have installed vessel monitoring systems for monitoring fishing activities.

The Cửu Long (Mekong) Delta province, which has one of the largest fishing boat fleets in the country, has more than 3,660 such boats which are fishing off-shore, according to the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The province is strengthening oversight of fishing activities to prevent illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

Mai Văn Huỳnh, Deputy Standing Secretary of the province Party Committee, said the province had requested relevant departments, agencies and organisations to focus on implementing well the work of preventing IUU fishing.

"The leaders of Party Committees and People’s Committees at all levels are responsible for implementing the work," he said.

The province targets it will have no fishing boat fishing illegally in foreign waters by the end of this year.

The province will strengthen monitoring activities of fishing boats around the clock through vessel monitoring systems and penalise those that turn off their monitoring devices when fishing at sea.

The province’s competent agencies have applied administrative fines worth a total of VNĐ155 million (US$6,400) to six fishing boats that lost their connections through vessel monitoring systems with competent agencies while they were fishing at sea so far this year.

The province People’s Committee has also applied administrative fines worth VNĐ3.7 billion ($160,000) to six other fishing boats that violate regulations on vessel monitoring systems so far this year.

The province has tightened monitoring and inspecting activities of fishing boats to prevent violations of fishing regulations.

It has stepped up advocacy to educate fishermen on fishing regulations and develop responsible and sustainable fishing.

It has established a working group to lead the fight against IUU fishing.

With more than 200km of coastline and 143 islands, the province has favourable conditions for developing fishing and marine aquaculture.

The province’s fishing boats caught about 312,000 tonnes of seafood in the first seven months of the year, down 7 per cent year-on-year.

The major reasons for the decline were that many boats temporarily stopped fishing because of high fuel prices, a shortage of fishermen and losses this year. – VNS