Prayut confident Thailand will meet EU fishery deadline
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PRIME MINISTER Prayut Chan-o-cha said yesterday he was confident that Thailand would be able to solve the problem of unregulated and unreported fishing practices within the time frame set by the European Union, which this week warned that it would ban Tha
“I have been working for the past six months and have accomplished a number of things. People know that the government is sincere and intends to resolve this problem. We want to do this as quickly as possible. Fishery-related laws needed to be overhauled. We need to register ships, install GPS [Global Positioning System] tracking on them, and install VMS [vessel monitoring systems].
“We have to know where they are catching fish, otherwise we cannot regulate them. A coastal fishery control centre will thus be set up, but if we have to wait for certain laws to be promulgated first or if we proceed using existing laws, we cannot establish these centres in time.
“So we must use Article 44 to facilitate implementation, although the application of penalties against offenders – business operators, consumers, workers – will be based on normal laws. Naval vessels and sailors will assist in the making of arrests in such cases.”
