Stopping illegal fishing trips with 2,100 phone calls: An Giang province hones its catch management

It has come to light that An Giang province in southern Vietnam made about 2,100 warning phone calls to fishing boats whose communications had been cut off in the first half of 2026, stopping fishing beyond permitted zones and unregistered trips at sea (reported June 28, 2026). The content of the calls was plain but fast-acting corrective communication: "your boat's position has disappeared," "you have crossed the border, turn back." At a time when the lifting of the yellow card the EU attached to Vietnamese seafood is at stake, it is a case showing what is moving on the ground in the growing region, and for Japanese buyers sourcing wild Vietnamese shrimp and fish, it is a story that bears on the predictability of supply.

The starting point: calling, one after another, every boat whose position disappeared

According to the reporting, An Giang, after driving 100% installation of the Vessel Monitoring System (VMS) on target boats in the first half, thoroughly applied an operation of contacting boats whose position had been cut off. There were 2,072 warning calls to boats whose VMS signal had been cut, plus 22 warning communications to boats judged to carry a high violation risk, piling up to about 2,100 corrective communications in total. Looking at the substance of the signal cutoffs, there were 121 notifications for cases where the signal disappeared for more than six hours and 22 warnings to boats cut off for 10 days or more—responses divided according to the severity of the cutoff.

Alongside this, locally seven patrols were carried out over the half year, 144 vessels were boarded and inspected, and 40 violations were found. Sixteen penalties were decided, and the fines totaled 1.6 billion dong (about US$60,000 at roughly 26,000 dong to the dollar, on the order of 9 million yen). Combining enforcement with advance correction by phone, rather than enforcement alone, is a feature of this growing region's operation.

Why now: the EU yellow card and the "fifth inspection"

Behind this is the EU's yellow card. In October 2017, the European Commission (EC) issued a warning to Vietnamese seafood on the grounds of insufficient measures against illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing. Since then Vietnam has advanced its institutional arrangements aiming for a lifting and has entered the stage of receiving the EC's fifth on-site inspection in 2026. If the yellow card comes off, barriers to EU exports fall; conversely, if measures are judged insufficient, the risk of a red card that would lead to a full halt of exports remains.

What the EC requires spans five fields: legal framework, fishing-vessel management, monitoring and control, origin traceability, and violation handling. An Giang's "2,100 phone calls" amounts to evidence of running the monitoring-and-control and violation-handling parts at the ground level. Looking at the whole country too, 127 violations were handled in the first half, fines totaled 5.8 billion dong, and penalties for VMS disconnection alone were imposed on 32 vessels for 2.1 billion dong. The figures let us read a situation in which the system reaches actual boats, not just paper.

In data: the buildup of registrations, licenses, and export certifications

An Giang's management is built up in three layers: vessel registration, licensing, and export certification. There are 10,914 fishing boats registered in the national database, over 95% of target boats have obtained an operating license, 3,627 operating permits have been issued, and 800 vessel registration certificates. Seventy-nine seafood export certifications for the European market (equivalent to about 697 tonnes) have been issued. Origin recording of raw materials via electronic catch documentation (eCDT) has also been introduced, and a mechanism to trace "which boat caught what, where, and when" is taking shape.

Field and industry reaction: both the province and companies are looking at "after the lifting"

This move is not a story about An Giang alone. The government has instructed each province and coastal locality to comprehensively correct the remaining IUU shortfalls, and Ho Chi Minh City in June unveiled a plan for full introduction of the electronic fishing logbook. In March, an EC inspection team was scheduled to tour the city and several coastal areas on the 9th–19th, and the administration is advancing preparations focused on "five points," from legal framework to violation handling.

At the provincial level too, An Giang has set a policy that "not a single boat without a permit, without a license, or without a safety certificate will put to sea," and has clearly stated a policy of combing through VMS disconnections and cross-border fishing from 2024 onward and imposing administrative penalties. The recognition that tightening enforcement is a precondition for continued exports is coming to be shared on the ground. From our own experience at Agriture handling Vietnamese primary products as well, "how far a growing region can make its management visible" becomes the dividing line for whether the Japanese side can keep placing orders with confidence.

Lessons for Japanese sourcing: making management visible becomes, directly, a safety valve for procurement

For Japanese food buyers, this is not "a distant EU regulation." Tighter catch management for wild seafood means a lower risk of shipments stopping when a problem surfaces after the fact. VMS installation rates, origin recording via eCDT, immediate correction of cross-border fishing—the more you source from a growing region where these are in place, the easier it is to fulfill accountability over origin and to explain things to domestic retail and foodservice. With Vietnamese seafood's exports to Japan in a phase of shifting to China, a phase where Vietnamese seafood's sales channels are shifting—precisely for that reason, it is worth putting the level of management into the indicators for selecting trading partners.

In practical terms, the first step is to confirm with the supplier the "VMS installation rate," "whether they can handle eCDT," and "their track record of export certifications." As with shrimp, efforts that extend management upstream to feed and production are advancing for some items, and choosing a "growing region that can tell its origin," whether wild or farmed, leads, in the end, to sourcing that is resilient to price swings and regulatory changes. The lifting of the yellow card is also a tailwind for the Japanese side that wants to source Vietnamese seafood stably.

Ripple effects on the market: the lifting could be a starting gun for "renewed export expansion"

If the yellow card were to come off, the cost and effort of EU exports would fall, and Vietnam's seafood sector would more easily direct spare supply capacity to international markets. The traceability built in that process is an asset that can be repurposed not only for the EU but for Japan and the United States as well. More advanced management is a burden on the ground in the short term, but over the medium term it tells as an investment in becoming a "chosen growing region." An Giang's 2,100 phone calls can be called small but concrete evidence that this investment has begun to turn on the ground.

Sources

Nong nghiep Moi truong: An Giang province makes about 2,100 phone calls to stop IUU-violating fishing trips

Vietnam News: HCM City digitises fishing logs to clear EC ‘yellow card’

Vietnam+: Vietnam intensifies efforts to have EC’s yellow card on seafood exports lifted