On 6 September 2018, General Chatchai Sarikulya, Deputy Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Thailand, chaired the inaugural meeting of the national committee on fishery free from aquatic animals and fisheries products derived from the illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The aforementioned committee will serve as an important mechanism to drive Thailand’s fisheries sector to be free from the IUU aquatic animals and fisheries products throughout the entire supply chain, for both domestic consumption and exportation.

          The national committee was set up by the Cabinet’s decision on 3 April 2018 and is responsible for drafting policies pertaining to the realisation of the IUU-free fishery, ranging from the prevention of raw materials derived from the IUU fishing from entering into the production and processing in Thailand, to the development of catch certificate schemes to be legally enforced on importers and exporters, and to the supervision and mobilisation of policy implementation of concerned agencies.

          Until now, Thailand has made steady progress in its fight against IUU fishing in many areas; particularly in the development of the traceability system for aquatic animals and fisheries products. Regarding the catches from Thai fishing vessels, Thailand has developed a monitoring, control and surveillance mechanism in order to prevent Thai fishing vessels from engaging in IUU fishing or landing IUU aquatic animals at Thai ports. Other developments include linking the databases of concerned agencies to increase the effectiveness of the inspection, and installing the Thai-flagged Catch Certification System, which will lead to the issuance of catch certificate for exporting purposes.

          As for the imported catches, Thailand has developed a traceability system for the catches from foreign fishing vessels. As Thailand is a party to the Port State Measures Agreement, it is obliged to inspect the vessels and to exchange information with other states to ensure that the offloaded catches at Thai ports are not from IUU fishing. The traceability system has also been set up for the catches brought in by road, via containers, and by air to control the importation from all channels. There are also random inspections conducted at processing plants and the development of the PSM linked and Processing Statement System (PPS) to control the traceability of fish, starting from the fishing vessels inspections, import permit, transshipment to processing plant, processing stage, and issuance of the processing statement for exportation to third countries. 

          Thailand has already set the traceability system in place to ensure IUU products are barred from entering into the supply chain. Nevertheless, it intends to continue the efforts in enhancing the effectiveness of the system under the supervision of the national committee in order to achieve the IUU-free status.