Wednesday, 28th October 2014
Referring to the Daily Mirror front page news item thet appeared on the 17th Oct with the heading “All fishing vessels must hoist national flag: Rajitha” the Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Ministry says that the Fisheries Ministry does not allow or issue licences to foreign vessels to fish in our waters or in international waters, under any circumstances.
There is no provision in the Fisheries Act to do so. What the Act permits is for the Fisheries Ministry to issue licences to around 2400 of our own, Sri Lankan built, multi-day boats to fish in our waters or in international waters, the clarification further said.
“We have also got eight larger Sri Lankan owned vessels built in China and Japan, fishing in international waters under a Board of Investment approved Sri Lankan company. However, due to their larger size, they are not allowed to fish in our waters or in our Exclusive Economic Zone. They fish a minimum of 200 kms away from our shores and normally operate thousands of miles away, and in no way compete with our multi-day fleet, and bring in valuable fish and foreign exchange earnings to our country,”.
No doubt that since all these vessels, both small and large, are Sri Lankan vessels, they have to fish under the Sri Lankan flag. Under international maritime law none of these vessels can enter the waters of another country without permission from that counry as it is illegal to do so. If they enter illegally, such a fishing operation will be categorized as IUU (Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated) fishing.
From : http://epaper.dailymirror.lk/epaper/viewer.aspx
