Thai government to set up special panel on IUU solution

BANGKOK, April 22 (TNA) - The Thai government plans to set up a special committee to explain Thai fishery issues to the European Union (EU). Thai Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister General Prawit Wongsuwan told journalists on Wednesday that he would ask Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha to form the committee, tasked with solving the Illegal Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) Fishing as demanded by the EU. General Prawit noted that the special panel, which would inform the EU what Thailand had done to address IUU, would be one of the Thai government's attempts to cope with the EU's decision on April 21 to issue a yellow card to Thailand for the alleged IUU Fishing, demanding that Bangkok address IUU Fishing within six months, or face an import ban on fishery products by the 28-member European trade bloc. Meanwhile, Minister Attached to the Prime Miniser's Office Suwaphan Tanyuvardhana assessed that the solution should be better over the next six months, as the government was working seriously. Dismissing the theory that the EU's yellow card issued to Thailand resulted from the non-elected status of the Thai government, Suwaphan pointed out that elected governments of other countries, including the Philippines, had also faced the EU's yellow cards. Nuntawan Sakuntanaga, Director-General of the Thai Ministry of Commerce's Department of International Trade Promotion, revealed that Thai authorities are asking the EU's advice on right solutions to IUU fishing and she, thus, believes that Thailand should solve the problem within the six month-dateline. (TNA)