Vietnam’s illegal fisheries are old threat to malaysian fisherman

Malaysia’s economy losses $334 Million (1 Billion Malaysian ringgit) a year to illegal fishing activities by foreign fisherman within its territorial waters.

The fishery sector has for decades been playing an important role as a major supplier of animal protein to the Malaysian population. In 2007 the total fishery production of the country amounted to 1,563,942 tonnes. 

The greatest bulk of the fish landings has always come from the capture fisheries, constituting 88.3 percent of the total production for the year 2007.

There are 129,622 fishermen working on 49,756 licensed fishing vessels. Of these, 36,566 people are fishermen of foreigners, especially from Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. 

Fishery Trade

Export value of fishery products increased to RM 2,328 million compared to RM 2,112.5 million in 2009. The main export contributors were shrimp (51%), fresh / cold / frozen (23%) and fish stocks (15%). While import value has increased to RM2,219 million compared to RM 2,098 million in 2009. 

The production of marine fish from Malaysian waters was 1,482,899 t.m which gave a value of RM8.336 billion in 2013. In 2014 production decreased by 1.67% to 1,458,128 t.m, with a value of RM 8.785 Billion.

Threats

- The Invasion by foreign fishermen; Vietnamese, Thais and China fishermen. The occurrence of intrusion by foreign fishermen, whether registered or unregistered, will not only affect the income of local fishermen but also threaten their safety.

- Foreign sales of foreign fish & criminals who use government-provided facilities, such as oil subsidies and boats, 

- the  use of illegal trawlers; that result in the loss of fish sources and local fishing net damage

- The weaknesses of security patrols due to issue arising out of inadequate of fuel  provisions for the boats

- the patrols Boats were over 40 years old compared to Vietnam's powerful fishing boats

- The intervention among three enforcement agencies, the Coast guard, the Department of Fisheries and the Marine Police, is very grateful with each one blaming one another without settlement until now.

solution

1. Revoke the license or place certain conditions on the owner of the fishing boat C2 so as not to use the service of the Vietnamese fisherman anymore.

2. MMEA  to always improving patrolling and enforcement.

3. Eradicating the activities of foreign fishermen in the waters of the country

4. Using diplomatic channel to control the foreign fisherman activities

5.  patrolling for local fishermen's safety and security.

Unfortunately, the suggestion to use the "drone" - a small flying watchdog, was not accepted and ignored by the minister in Parliament during the recent debate on March 2017.