The southernmost province of Ca Mau will revoke permanently licences of captains and fishing boats that operate illegally in foreign waters. 

The measure, prescribed in Directive No. 11-CT/TU dated April 12, 2018 of the provincial Party Committee’s Standing Board, aims to put an end to illegal fishing activities of local boats and fishermen in foreign waters. 

The board also asked all-level Party Committees, authorities, chapters of the Vietnam Fatherland Front, social-political organisations and relevant agencies in the province to step up communications work in order to raise awareness of fishermen, especially owners and captains of off-shore fishing boats, about law observance. 

Ca Mau will work, together with other coastal localities nationwide, to implement recommendations of the EU for the early lifting of the yellow card warning on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing in Vietnam, according to the Directive. 

The prevention of illegal fishing should be added to plans for 2018 and the following years of localities in the province, the document said. 

Heads of Party Committees and administrations at local levels, along with heads of competent agencies should bear responsibility for any violations committed by fishing boats and fishermen under their management, it noted. 

The provincial police and border guard forces are assigned to coordinate with each other to promptly investigate cases of fishing boats and fishermen detained by foreign countries for illegal fishing.  

Ca Mau held a conference on Vietnamese fishermen’s illegal fishing in foreign waters at the end of last March. At the event, Colonel Nguyen Dinh Khuong, Vice Political Commissar of the Coast Guard Zone 3 High Command, reported the increasing number of violations committed by Vietnamese fishing boats in the south of the East Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. 

Some regional countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand have intensified the operation of military and surveillance vessels to protect their waters, while taking strong measures to handle involved fishing boats, he said. 

According to the Ca Mau Border Guard Headquarters, as from October 2017, a total of 17 fishing boats of Ca Mau with 96 crew members aboard have been arrested for violating foreign waters.-VNA