What will MARD do to remove “Yellow card” in the second half of the year?

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Minister of of Agriculture and Rural Development Nguyen Xuan Cuong

In May, the EC’s delegation visited to inspect the implementation of their recommendations and consider removing the “Yellow card” for seafood exports. However, so far "Yellow card" has not been removed. Could you tell me more details about what resulted?

In the six months of implementing solutions to overcome the “Yellow card” from the EC, Vietnam has focused on deploying many solutions and perfecting legal documents. 9 EC recommendations were included in the Fisheries Law. This has been a great effort to shape the legal framework. Besides, the Government has provided unified guidance, and 28 coastal provinces and fishermen have fiercely implemented .

However, 6 months is insufficient time to transfer from a “manual fisheries sector” into a responsible and sustainable fisheries sector. This is a necessary requirement for any country when being warned with a "yellow card” from the EC. Currently, there has been no country able to remove a "yellow card” after 1 to 2 years.

In your opinion, in the second half of the year, does the maintaining of “Yellow card” continue to affect seafood exports to the EU?

Currently, the “Yellow card” does not affect the market share of seafood exports, because Vietnam has many markets.

We must strive for a sustainable fishery. This is the key and long-term goal of Vietnam and we need to try to achieve this goal by ourselves rather than depending on the EC’s removal of the “Yellow card”. Thus, the fisheries sector needs to be restructured. On one hand, the production needs to be reorganized; the most important thing is focusing on processing for a more effective value chain. At the same time, focusing on long-term farming methods rather than short-term exploitation, which is the sustainable solution.

The second half of the year is an important period for Vietnam to continue to carry out recommendations from the EC to encourage them to return, inspect and consider the removal of “Yellow Card” in January 2019. Could you tell me about the key solutions to be focused on?

The EC delegation's inspection shows that they appreciated Vietnam's efforts. However, with the large volume of work required, including sustainable exploitation, responsibilities of fishermen, law enforcement, development of legal normative documents and etc, we should keep trying in the coming time.

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Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development has advised the Prime Minister to continue to issue documents, especially action plans for provinces to further drastically implement. Specifically, we need to change the habits of natural fishing into responsible exploitation by proper declaration, bookkeeping, and in legitimate fishing grounds; remove shortcomings on infrastructure such as port anchorage, etc. In general, the responsibility of fishermen, enterprises and management agencies must be specified so that the “Yellow card” can be removed soon.

Thank you, Minister!