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| Over 28,000 fishing vessels nationwide now equipped with vessel tracking devices__Photo:Vietnamplus |
The Government on November 17 issued Decree 301/2025/ND-CP, amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree 38/2024/ND-CP on sanctions of fisheries-related administrative violations. This move demonstrates Vietnam’s high determination to end illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, particularly in addressing the European Commission's (EC) “yellow card”.
Effective on the date of its signing, the decree states that vessel owners face the highest fines, between VND 800,000,000 and VND 1,000,000,000, for (i) fishing in the maritime zones of another country or territory or in maritime zones managed by a regional fisheries management organization (RFMO) without a fishing license/written approval or with an expired fishing license/written approval; (ii) using the vessel for fishing in contravention of the regulations on exploitation and protection of fisheries resources in the international waters not under the RFMO management; or (iii) fishing in contravention of regulations in maritime zones under the RFMO management.
Fines of between VND 500,000,000 and VND 700,000,000, are imposed to the vessel owner who (i) uses a vessel with the maximum length of between 15 meters and under 24 meters for sea fishing without a fishing license or with an expired fishing license in case of recidivism or repeated administrative violations, (ii) conceals, forges or destroys evidence of violations of the regulations on exploitation and protection of fisheries resources; or (iii) exploits fisheries resources in excess of the quota permitted by an RFMO.
Vessel masters face the same fine for failing to record fishing logbooks; recording them inaccurately as required by the RFMO; or reporting in contravention of the RFMO’s regulations when fishing in maritime zones under the RFMO management.
The new decree also adds several remedial measures applicable to the fisheries sector compared to the old one. Violating vessels are compelled to fully equip communication devices, fix technical errors in their vessel tracking devices, transmit all vessel tracking data to the fisheries monitoring system, and install vessel tracking devices on their fishing vessels.- (VLLF)
