The European Union (EU) has added Korea to a group of blacklisted countries that face possible sanctions in the future for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing (IUUF) on the high seas, the government said Tuesday.
The action comes after the United States labeled Korea as one of 10 countries on its own IUUF list in January based on its finding.
The Ministry of Ocean and Fisheries (MOF) said the included the country on the preliminary IUUF list for its negligence in setting up a fisheries monitoring center (FMC) that can oversee activities of its fishing vessels operating in international waters.
The ministry also said the EU also took action against Korea for ignoring its repeated warnings to require the country’s fishing boats to install a vessel monitoring system (VMS). The VMS is equipped with a global positioning system and allows the FMC to monitor position, course and speed of a boat through a satellite network, according to the ministry.
The measure is temporary and the EU’s Commission for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries may remove Korea from the IUUF list based on its efforts to meet regulatory demands over the next year, the ministry said. Failure, however, can result in a ban in both exports and imports of fisheries products produced by Korea and the EU, respectively, it added.
“The measure taken by the EU will not have any effect on Korea’s economy,” said Ryoo Jae-hyung, international cooperation division director at the ministry. “And we’ll do our best to meet demands brought up by our trading partner as quickly as possible.”
But he also expressed regret over the EU move, saying it was inappropriate.
“We’ve worked to set up a monitoring system on our fishing activities on the high seas, and it’s not appropriate to put Korea on the blacklist for discrepancies in terms of the time needed to implement the system,” said Ryoo.
He cited the National Assembly approved of a bill in July to require the ministry and Korean fishing boats to respectively set an FMS and install VMS by mid-2014.
Ryoo also said the bill requires a fishing boat caught for IUUF to pay a fine up to three times larger than the market price of the fish caught.
The EU first raised IUUF by Korean fishing boats in 2009, and mainly focused on urging the country to increase the fines imposed on those caught, according to Ryoo.
In 2010, the law to take punitive action against countries guilty of frequent IUUF took effect in the EU; and in 2012, it blacklisted eight ― Belize, Cambodia, Fiji, Guinea, Panama, Sri Lanka, Togo, and Vanuatu. It has not made any further moves since then.
Of the 328 boats approved by the ministry for fishing on the high sea, 51 of them have not been equipped with VMS, it said.
In 2012, Korea exported 32,577 tons of fisheries products worth $107.57 million. The figure accounts for 4.5 percent of total exports.
The country imported 19,378 tons of such products last year, worth $105.20 million and accounting for 2.6 percent of total imports.
The ministry said it has been in talks with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) of the U.S. regarding the latter’s decision to include Korea on its IUUF list. Countries on that list include Colombia, Ecuador, Ghana, Italy, Mexico, Panama, Spain, Tanzania and Venezuela.
The NOAA issues a biannual report on countries that are engaged in illegal fishing activities, according to the ministry. It said failure to improve by January 2015 will result in a ban on fisheries trade between the U.S. and Korea.
