Immigrants from Myanmar selecting shrimps. (Photo Credit: Jason Motlagh)

Govt seeks to regulate the fishing industry with firm hand

THAILAND
Wednesday, February 03, 2016, 00:40 (GMT + 9)

In order to defend the country’s multi-billion dollar seafood industry, Thai authorities have intensified efforts to fight sector's abuses.

More than 100 people were arrested, and the police repoted a taskforce had investigated 36 cases and rescued 130 trafficking victims.

Last April, the EU warned Thailand that would block imports if the Thai government did not take action to stop illegal fishing.

Meanwhile, human rights groups have been denouncing abuses in the Thai industry since long ago. On several occasions, they stated the industry is dependent on illegal fishing and overfishing, and involves workers trafficked from neighbouring countries who work in slave-like conditions.

Thailand is the world's third largest exporter of seafood and its complex problems will not be solved quickly even with determined government effort.

Therefore, the country faces a real challenge properly licensing thousands of fishing boats and reducing the fleet to a more sustainable size, but also of regulating a fragmented processing industry, one of the world’s biggest, where endemic labour abuses exist, BBC News reported.

There is a rooted illegal but very profitable business of trafficking migrants through Thailand, so although the country shows improvements in order to avoid the EU ban, they seem limited.

The US also has included the country on a blacklist for failing to do enough about what it called "persistent" labour abuses in the seafood sector.

After the final inspection by a delegation from the EU, last month, the European bloc decided to maintain the yellow card imposed on the Thai fishing industry and give the country another six months to improve their performance in the fight against IUU fishing and to prepare training manuals for the implementation of the relevant standards.

According to government spokesmen, the EU delegation was satisfied with the performance of Thailand so far addressing the IUU fishing problem, but they consider that there are still some areas for improvement.

About 15 per cent of Thailand's seafood exports are destined for the EU.

Related articles:

- EU delegation assesses Thailand’s efforts to combat IUU fishing
- Govt intensifies measures to pass EU fisheries inspection
- Thai Union ensures to be combatting labour force

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