The Cabinet on Thursday approved a draft bill to increase the penalties on long-distance ships that engage in illegal fishing, in an effort to prevent possible trade sanctions by the EU.
In addition, the Cabinet approved draft amendments to the Ordinance to Govern Investment in the Operation of Foreign Flag Fishing Vessels (投資經營非我國籍漁船管理條例) and the Fisheries Act (漁業法), which were submitted by the Fisheries Agency of the Council of Agriculture.
The new bill and the amendments are to be sent to the legislature for ratification.
Council Minister Chen Tze-ching (陳志清) said his agency would step up communication with lawmakers and representatives in the fishing industry on the draft legislation.
Premier Simon Chang (張善政) said that he hoped the bill and the amendments would clear the legislative floor as soon as possible.
The draft seeks to impose stiffer penalties for illegal fishing by long-distance fleets, with the aim of preventing possible trade sanctions by the EU and bringing domestic laws in line with international law.
Under the draft legislation, long-distance fishing fleets would also be required to install a vessel monitoring system and a system to report each vessel’s catch.
The draft stipulates that fleets that engage in illegal fishing would be subject to a maximum fine of NT$30 million (US$922,509), which increases to NT$45 million for repeated violations.
The draft is a response to a “yellow card” issued by the European Commission in October last year, which warned that Taiwan risks being identified as an uncooperative nation in the fight against “illegal, unreported and unregulated” fishing.
The warning followed a report by Greenpeace that a Taiwanese fishing vessel, the Shuen De Ching No. 888, was seen illegally harvesting shark fins and throwing finned sharks back into waters near Papua New Guinea.
If the issue is not addressed by the end of March next year, Taiwan risks EU trade sanctions.
In drafting the bill, the Fisheries Agency referred to related fisheries laws in South Korea and the Philippines, two countries that also received yellow cards from the EU.
The English version of the draft was sent to the EU, which said it had no problem with the contents, Chen said.
Among Taiwan’s 20,000 fishing vessels, 1,300 to 1,600 are long-distance fishing boats, the council said.
If the EU imposes trade sanctions against Taiwan, it would cost the nation about NT$1 billion per year, and other nations might follow suit and impose sanctions that would be detrimental to Taiwan’s long-distance fisheries industry, which has an annual output of about NT$50 billion.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods