With 72km coastline, Nam Dinh is home to over 17,000 hectares of aquatic farming. The annual growth of the local fisheries sector is over 4.5%. Illustrative image (Photo: VNA)

The northern province of Nam Dinh has applied drastic measures to prevent and combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU) and strictly handle violations as part of efforts to join other coastal localities in removing the EC’s “yellow card” against Vietnamese seafood exports.

With 72km coastline, Nam Dinh is home to over 17,000 hectares of aquatic farming. The annual growth of the local fisheries sector is over 4.5%. Last year, its total aquatic output exceeded 187,300 tonnes, with export revenue of 11.12 trillion VND (473.79 million USD).

Hoang Thi To Nga, Vice Director of the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, said the province has still seen violations in fisheries exploitation and protection.

Therefore, the province has focused on popularising fisheries law among local fishermen with different methods, while applying strict punishments to vessels violating fishing regulations.

As of the end of April, local authorities had detected and handled five violation cases, collecting fines of 85.5 million VND.

The department has revoked the fishing licences of 74 individuals and organisations committing fisheries violations and failing to show necessary documents and install the vessel monitoring system (VMS), said Nga.

To date, 510 out of the total 541 fishing vessels with the length from 15m of Nam Dinh have installed the VMS, reaching 94.27%.

Nguyen Thanh Chung, Director of Nam Dinh fishing port’s Management Board said that the board has tightened control over vessels in the port, preventing those that fail to meet necessary IUU prevention requirements to leave the port.

The province has also strengthened supervision and management over fishing vessels’ operations to ensure they do not violate fisheries regulations.

Standing Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Nam Dinh Tran Anh Dung said that in the time to come, the locality will continue to intensify measures to effectively prevent and combat IUU and control the movement of local fishing vessels, aiming to contribute to removing the “yellow card”.