On September 7, the People's Committee of Khanh Hoa province announced that it had a Plan to implement a peak period of combating illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.
The plan aims to thoroughly grasp and seriously and effectively implement tasks and solutions to combat IUU fishing, and overcome the recommendations of the European Commission.
Agencies and units are clearly assigned tasks, products, and completion deadlines to completely overcome shortcomings and limitations in the fight against IUU fishing according to the requirements of the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment.
Accordingly, 6 key groups of tasks and solutions include: propaganda, raising awareness; managing fleets; monitoring fishing vessels in operation; managing the installation and operation of voyage monitoring devices (VMS) and handling VMS violations; tracing the origin of exploited aquatic products; preventing and handling fishing vessels violating foreign waters.
For the group of solutions to prevent violations of foreign waters, the Plan clearly states: Review and update the list of fishing vessels and fishermen at high risk (one violated, often lost VMS connection, brokerage, connection hook, ships bought and sold without changing owners...).
Officers are assigned to be in charge of groups of ships and fishermen at high risk to propagate, mobilize, and monitor right from shore.
At the same time, apply professional measures to reconnait, monitor, promptly detect and prevent violations; strictly control fishing vessels operating in border areas and outside the province; organize 24/7 supervision of fishing vessel activities at sea.
Ship owners and captains (especially ships that do not have VMS connection, ships operating near the border) are regularly reminded to not disable VMS, not cross the illegally exploited border.
The province will investigate and strictly handle acts of sending fishing vessels and fishermen to violate foreign waters; transporting and sending VMS equipment... to deter and educate the fishing community.
The Department of Agriculture and Environment - the standing agency of the Provincial IUU Steering Committee - is responsible for monitoring, inspecting, urging and synthesizing reports to the Provincial People's Committee, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, and the National Steering Committee on IUU according to regulations.
Many positive results in tracing the origin of aquatic products
As of early August 2025, the whole province has 5,272 fishing vessels with a length of 6m or more, 100% registered and updated data to the Vnfishbase Database System; 99.72% of fishing vessels have been licensed to exploit aquatic products; 99.54% of 1,514 fishing vessels with a length of 15m or more have installed VMS (VMS) monitoring equipment...
The total number of ships entering and leaving the port is 16,361, the total output of aquatic products exploited through the inspected and controlled ports is 23,454 tons. The authorities have inspected and issued 384 certificates of seafood ingredients for 7,094 tons of seafood, and issued certificates of exploited seafood for 153 shipments with an output of 2,058 tons of seafood.
Khanh Hoa is the first locality in the country to apply the Electronic Traceability of Exploited Seafood (eCDT software) to monitor and control transparency and legality according to regulations on confirmation and certification of the origin of exploited seafood products...
