95% of Ho Chi Minh City's fishing boats go to electronic catch logs: how will Japan's squid sourcing change?

In Ho Chi Minh City, of 2,803 fishing vessels 12 meters or longer, 2,665 have finished entering the electronic catch documentation (eCDT) on their devices. As of 24 September, the adoption rate is 95%. The city's Department of Agriculture and Environment announced it, and Nong nghiep va Moi truong reported it on 25 September. It is one step forward in the process of replacing paper logbooks and uploading catch volume by vessel and by voyage directly to the management system. What matters for Japanese seafood procurement staff is that importing squid, mackerel, Pacific saury, and sardine requires the flag state's government certificate, and the records that underpin it are this eCDT.

2,665 of 2,803 vessels: the adoption split by vessel size

Adoption did not advance uniformly. In the city's breakdown, vessels of 15 meters to under 24 meters were highest at 1,875 of 1,932, or 97%; 12 meters to under 15 meters was 92%, and 24 meters or longer stopped at 87%. The highest is the middle layer, with both the smaller and larger sides lower.

15 to under 24 meters at 97%, 24 meters or longer stuck at 87%

A vessel-count breakdown is given only for 15 to under 24 meters; for the remaining two categories only the rate is disclosed. One cannot fill this in by estimate and write 'how many vessels.' Another point to pin down is the denominator. The city's fishing vessels numbered 4,427 as of 15 September. Those 12 meters or longer are a little over 60% of the whole, with the rest outside the 95%. Because the base dates differ by nine days it is not an exact subtraction, but the sense of scale is that around 1,600 vessels are out of scope.

Communication fees are free through all of 2026, then from 2027 onto the city budget

A design that does not put the cost on fishers is also moving. The service provider supplies the electronic logbook free until the end of 2026, and from early 2027 the city budget will subsidize upkeep; the reporting holds that this policy has led to consensus-building and encouraged participation. Pham Thi Na, deputy director of the Department of Agriculture and Environment, explains that the figure came from each agency tracking daily usage and working out, with the service provider, the glitches raised by fishers and fishing ports. For vessels at high risk of violation, officials even go to the owner's home or the fishers' hamlet to persuade them.

The EU's recommendations span five areas; Vietnam is set to send its report in early October

This focused month is a response to the recommendations from the European Commission (EC)'s fifth inspection. As Bui Yen Tin, deputy director of the Ministry of National Defense's Operations Department, said in Ho Chi Minh City in early September, the recommendations span five areas: legal basis, fleet management, fleet monitoring, seafood traceability, and the handling of IUU violations. Vietnam is set to compile a summary report by the end of September and send it to the EC in early October, and the result will be material for the EC to consider its next steps.

The 'yellow card' has not been lifted since 2017

It was 2017 when the EC issued a yellow card as a warning to Vietnam's fisheries, and the impact on exports to the EU remains. Two inspection timings appear across articles from the same outlet—'9–18 March' and '10–19 May'—and which was the fifth inspection's schedule could not be fixed. We avoid writing with a date attached.

A separate target is set to put all entries and exits of vessels 6 meters or longer onto eCDT

This time's 95% means 'the logbook app was installed on vessels 12 meters or longer,' not the endpoint of operation. The focused-month plan the city announced in August sets a target of recording 100% of the entries and exits of fishing vessels 6 meters or longer on eCDT. Deputy Director Tin also cited a state in which, although authorities check vessels daily, some data does not fully upload to the system, and said management holds only once eCDT is in place. Adoption rate and operation rate must be read separately.

No confirmation document is issued for raw material from vessels with no valid eCDT data

What bites most for the procurement side is the next line of the same plan. The city clearly states a policy of not issuing a catch raw-material confirmation document for raw material from vessels with no eCDT data or only invalid data. At ports it will have the actual landed quantity declared on eCDT, and demand cross-checking that runs through vessel, fishing port, administrative agency, and the buying, processing, and exporting companies. When you ask a processor 'will the confirmation document be issued?', the answer is set to change depending on which vessel the fish was bought from.

Japan's squid imports require the flag state's government certificate

The Japanese side's requirements are fixed in law. The Act on Ensuring the Proper Domestic Distribution of Specified Marine Animals and Plants (the Marine Distribution Proper-Handling Act) obliges, for the import of specified Type-2 marine animals and plants, the attachment of a certificate from a foreign government agency attesting that they were lawfully caught. The items the enforcement regulations list are four: mackerel, Pacific saury, sardine, and squid. Of the 'squid and octopus' that VASEP tallies as an export category, squid falls into these four. If the Vietnamese side's confirmation and certification jam up, the Japanese side's import procedures stop too.

The certificate has a field to write the catching vessel's information

That the items to be stated include the catching vessel's information connects directly to this news. Raw material whose vessel cannot be identified snags somewhere in the paperwork. Flipped around, a producing area whose per-vessel records enter the system shows a difference in how smoothly the paperwork passes, even for the same item. Tariffs are decided by the choice of agreement, but documents remain as a separate gate. For the tariff-rate differences by agreement, see There are 384 trade agreements in force worldwide; the tariff on Vietnamese seafood to Japan differs by agreement.

August squid and octopus to the EU were down 32.4%; what VASEP cited was the documentary requirements

By VASEP's tally, August 2026 exports to the EU were down 6.2%, with a breakdown of shrimp down 23.5%, tuna down 15.6%, and squid and octopus down 32.4%. VASEP writes that catch-derived items continue to be held up by the catch raw-material confirmation document, the catch certificate, and the requirement to connect with the EU's CATCH. It does not attribute the decline to documents alone, but it does show that documents remain as a practical bottleneck.

Vietnam's fisheries topped US$8 billion in eight months; the growth was made by the aquaculture side

In the same tally, seafood exports for August alone were US$1.14 billion, up 6.4% year on year, and the January–August cumulative was more than US$8 billion, up 11.9%. Shrimp was US$478.5 million in August, about US$3.28 billion cumulative; pangasius was US$204.9 million in August, US$1.52 billion cumulative. What is lifting things is the two aquaculture items, while the catch side's growth is sluggish. For catch-derived items, VASEP urges checking the IUU and traceability documents from the raw-material purchasing stage.

Shellfish and tilapia are not among the four items in the first place

This is an easy divide to translate into sourcing design. The items that require the flag state's government certificate at import are the four—mackerel, Pacific saury, sardine, and squid—and shellfish and tilapia do not fall into this frame. On the single point of documentary effort, it is lighter to go with items that turn on aquaculture. The actual situation of Vietnam's farmed shellfish is Vietnam's whelk farming reaches 6,200 tonnes a year: can it be used for Japan's shellfish sourcing? as seen there. Aquaculture has its own challenges too, and it is not a matter of switching on documents alone.

What Japanese buyers can ask suppliers at the current stage

At which fishing port or landing point are they landing?

The areas the city cites as candidate satellite fishing ports, that is, landing points, include Can Gio, Thanh An, Binh Khanh, and Long Son. The early-September inspection by the Ministry of National Defense was held at Cat Lo fishing port (Cat Lo, Phuoc Thang ward). The scale of 4,427 fishing vessels can be read as a figure bundling a coastal area wider than the city name brings to mind. When a trading partner says 'a Ho Chi Minh City vessel,' without asking which port or landing point, you cannot read how the confirmation document will come out.

Decide a fallback destination in case the confirmation document stops

Under the city's plan, vessels whose vessel monitoring system (VMS) is not running, whose seal is broken, whose serial number does not match, or that bear traces of tampering will not be allowed to depart. Cases where the VMS has been cut off for more than six hours and less than ten days are handled by the Department of Agriculture and Environment, with a goal of completing processing within 60 days of filing. One vessel's defect can stop documents for tens of days at a time. For the Japanese side, realistic preparations are to secure two alternative suppliers of the same specification and to write into the contract the conditions for switching to farmed product. The demand side is not uniform either: VASEP reports that Japanese households' seafood spending in July 2026 rose only about 2%, while prices rose 9% and fresh items 12.4%. Shelf movements are Seafood up 9%; households' real seafood spending down 6%, splitting the shelf by item is detailed.

If narrowing this week's move to one thing, it is to have a trading partner that buys wild squid from Vietnam provide the registration numbers of the fishing vessels supplying the raw material and a list of the landing fishing ports. Whether the numbers come out shows whether the partner can withstand documents tightening from October onward. If they do not come out, either the person in charge is not connected directly with the vessel owners, or they cannot trace back to the vessel through multiple middlemen—and in either case, when the confirmation document stops, it will take time.

The materials confirmed for this article

• Nong nghiep va Moi truong, 25 September 2026 (eCDT adoption 95%)
• Same, 25 August 2026 (focused-month plan)
• Same, 5 September 2026 (EC's five recommendation areas and the inspection)
• Same, 14 August 2026 (yellow-card response)
• VASEP (August and January–August exports)
• VASEP (Japan's seafood spending and prices)
• The Marine Distribution Proper-Handling Act (e-Gov statute search)
• The same Act's enforcement regulations (e-Gov statute search)