Accelerating vessel digital systems to combat IUU fishing

Recently, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Environment Phung Duc Tien chaired a meeting to review efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The meeting was attended by leaders of the Directorate of Fisheries and Surveillance, the National Authority for Agro-Forestry-Fishery Quality, Processing and Market Development, the Department of Digital Transformation, along with representatives from the Military Industry and Telecommunications Group (Viettel) and the Vietnam Posts and Telecommunications Group (VNPT).

At the meeting, recognizing the urgency of the intensive campaign to lift the “yellow card” ahead of the fifth inspection by EC, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien emphasized the need to accelerate the implementation of both technical and legal solutions.

Accordingly, the Deputy Minister issued directives on nine key priorities to be completed before the EC inspection delegation arrives in Vietnam in April 2026. These include urgently finalizing and fully operating systems for the management of fishing vessels and fishing activities; tightening control over vessel monitoring systems (VMS) and fisheries logistics service vessels; decisively addressing so-called “three-no” vessels; handling vessels that violate foreign waters; and strengthening administrative penalties for both fishermen and seafood exporting enterprises.

The Deputy Minister instructed the Directorate of Fisheries and Fisheries Surveillance to convey this directive to 21 coastal provinces and cities so that local authorities can proactively prepare infrastructure and human resources and provide training for fishermen. The guiding principle is that all preparations must be completed before the Lunar New Year so that the systems can operate smoothly by mid-February, ensuring sufficient and reliable data for engagement with the EC inspection delegation.

One of the most pressing issues discussed was the feasibility of electronic fishing logbooks under the electronic catch documentation and traceability system (eCDT) in real offshore conditions. Many fishermen and vessel owners have expressed concerns that the loss of telecommunications signals during distant-water fishing could prevent them from updating data, potentially exposing them to unjust penalties.

To address this concern, the Ministry’s leadership agreed on a technical solution whereby the eCDT system and the national VNFishbase database are designed to operate stably in both online and offline modes.

Specifically, when vessels operate in offshore areas without signal coverage, fishermen can continue to record their logbooks on the application as usual. The data will be temporarily stored on the device and automatically synchronized to the Data Center of the Directorate of Fisheries and Fisheries Surveillance once the vessel regains satellite connectivity or returns to areas with network coverage. This solution allows fishermen to operate at sea for extended periods with peace of mind, ensuring regulatory compliance without being entirely dependent on network infrastructure.

At the same time, the Deputy Minister requested that technical units design the software interface to be as simple and user-friendly as possible, enabling all fishermen to use it easily. The application will also be publicly available on app stores (App Store, Google Play) together with access links to ensure transparency for international organizations.

For vessel owners, harmonizing administrative procedures is urgent to reduce paperwork burdens. In practice, the current fisheries vessel management process involves both the fisheries sector (port-based management) and the Border Guard (departure and arrival control at checkpoints).

At the meeting, Mr. Tran Chi Thanh, Deputy Director of the Government Solutions Center of Viettel Enterprise Solutions Corporation, confirmed that the technical infrastructure for connectivity between the Ministry of National Defence and the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment has been completed. This data interoperability will allow information declared by fishermen at a single point to be automatically shared with the other authority.

This mechanism not only enables management agencies to accurately determine the number of vessels entering and leaving ports, helping reduce data discrepancies, but also allows fishermen to reduce the time required for declarations at fishing ports and border guard stations, thereby creating greater convenience, Mr. Thanh said.

In his concluding remarks, Deputy Minister Phung Duc Tien instructed relevant units to focus all available resources and finalize all assigned tasks to submit a comprehensive report to the Prime Minister.