The European Union said Tuesday it will ban seafood from Thailand unless it clamps down on illegal fishing, while removing a similar threat from the Philippines and South Korea.
Thailand was given six months to clean up its fishing industry, or join neighboring Cambodia, the only Southeast Asian country now on the European black list, the EU said. Thailand is the world’s third-biggest fisheries exporter, according to the U.N., behind only China and Norway. And 15% of its fisheries exports head to the EU.
The EU said Tuesday it had denounced the country’s shortcomings in its fisheries monitoring, control and sanctioning systems, and concludes that Thailand is not doing enough. To avoid a ban, Bangkok must implement a tailor-made action plan to drive illegal fishing out of its waters within the next six months, the EU said.
Today’s action constitutes a warning, what we call a yellow card For the time being, there are no commercial sanctions whatsoever said Karmenu Vella, European Commissioner for Environment, Maritime Affairs and Fisheries.
The Philippines and South Korea, on the other hand, have taken responsible action, amended their legal systems and switched to a proactive approach against illegal fishing, Mr. Vella said.
The EU launched a crackdown on illegal fishing in 2010, forcing countries to tighten up the monitoring and oversight of their fishing sectors, or face being locked out of the lucrative European market. Illegal fishing accounts for 15% of the global catch, an amount valued at up to $20 billion a year, according to the EU.
The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded Tuesday, urging the EU to remove the yellow card at the earliest opportunity. It said it was deeply disappointed at the EU’s decision, and found it a source of grave discouragement that the government’s efforts to improve its fishing practices have been ignored.
Thai Commerce Minister General Chatchai Sarikulya said Tuesday a working committee chaired by Prime Minister General Prayuth Chan-ocha had already been set up in anticipation of the EU warning. The chairman of the Thai Frozen Foods Association, Poj Aramwattananont, said he was confident Thailand would take the necessary steps over the next six months to avert a ban.
The Thai fishing industry sold $319 million in fishery products to the EU last year, according to the Thai Ministry of Commerce. Thai fishery sales to the EU also grew 16% last year.
The EU’s seal of approval comes as a relief to Manila, which aims to ramp up its exports to Europe, the Philippine Department of Trade and Industry has said.
Europe is a key market for the Philippines, which sold $230 million in fishery products to the EU in 2013, roughly one-sixth of its total exports, according to the latest government figures.
In the Philippines, most illegal fishing is carried out by large commercial boats that encroach on waters reserved for small-scale fishermen close to the shore, depleting local fish stocks, according to the Department of Agriculture. Outlawed practices including dynamite and cyanide fishing also persist in some areas.
Late last year, in response to European pressure, the Philippine Congress passed a new fisheries code imposing tough penalties on such activities.
The threat of an EU ban against the Philippines, first made in June last year, meant that Manila might fail to capitalize on its recent entry into the EU’s Generalized Scheme of Preferences Plus, or GSP+, a trade program which removed tariffs on thousands of Philippine imports to the 28-country bloc, including fish, when the country was admitted last December. The Philippine government has said that entry into the program would create thousands of new jobs, mainly in fishing and manufacturing.
Century Pacific Food Inc., the Philippines’s largest producer of canned food, expressed relief the threatened ban would no longer materialize. The flexibility to sell into Europe, together with GSP+, is a positive for us and for the industry, said Teddy Kho, vice president of the company’s tuna-export business.
The EU has so far banned Guinea and Sri Lanka, as well as Cambodia, after they failed to heed warnings about their fishing practices.
2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.