Thailand’s military government and leaders of the country’s lucrative but tainted fishing industry have been holding their collective breath this week while a visiting European Union delegation assesses practices and standards in order to decide if seafood from Thailand should be banned.
The EU issued Thailand a ‘yellow card’ in April by way of a rebuke for the illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing practices of the world’s third largest seafood exporter. Europe consumes about 10% of Thailand’s seafood exports.
EU inspections are ongoing until Thursday and results are due to be released in February. Ahead of the delegation’s arrival last week, Thai authorities gave reporters a last-minute rundown on remedial steps taken over the past eight months.
“I am confident that the EU will lift the yellow card — or at least maintain the yellow flag for another six months and not give us the red card,” said Poj Aramwattananont, chairman of the Thai Fishery Producers Coalition, which includes eight fishery associations.
Speaking to reporters last week, he described the issues as “wide and deeply rooted” but said the industry “realizes this is important and stands by our commitment to support the government’s policy on IUU fishing and combatting labor abuse”.
Thai Union Group, the world’s largest canned tuna processor, said on Monday that it has taken on over 1,000 workers who used to work for its suppliers. The company stopped using pre-processing suppliers for its shrimp products at the end of December and brought all operations on board in order to monitor the treatment of workers directly.
“This is a positive step towards our goal of ridding the Thai seafood sector of illegal labor practices,” Chief Executive Thiraphong Chansiri said in a statement. Thai Union had been accused in a Greenpeace report of failing to ensure vessels free from forced labor supplied its products.
Concerns that the Thai seafood industry has been using illegal labor, particularly migrant workers from neighboring countries, have mounted globally along with the evidence.
The U.S. annual Trafficking in Persons report ranked Thailand in the bottom Tier 3 in 2015, citing the fishing industry as a sector in particular need of improvement.
Seafood processing is extremely labor intensive, and Thailand has taken advantage of its access to low-cost migrant labor from neighboring countries, especially Myanmar, according to a joint report issued by the International Labor Organization and the Asia Foundation last June. According to its findings, 80% of the 700,000 people employed by Thailand’s shrimp industry were migrant workers.
The report conceded that the extended supply chain “has made it very difficult for Thai government authorities to regulate all entities”.
The shrimp procurement chain alone involves over 10,000 farms, several hundred traders, 1,000 primary contract processors and over 100 export processors.
Charoen Pokphand Foods, the world’s largest shrimp producer, said it axed more than half its fishmeal suppliers and fish-sourcing vessels last year for failing to meet labor standards.
A U.S. consumer sued the company in August along with the U.S. retail chain Costco for knowingly selling seafood produced with forced labor. Nestle was meanwhile brought to court for selling cat food that contained fish from a Thai supplier that allegedly used illegal labor.
Thailand’s military government has found itself saddled with a number of serious multilateral issues ranging from aviation to fisheries since it seized power in a coup in May 2014, but claims it has done its part to rectify matters.
“The government is very determined and doing its best to solve the issue at the foundation level, which is a result of accumulated problems over the years,” Kongcheep Tantravanich, a defense ministry spokesperson told reporters on Jan.14. “If we don’t take action, it could jeopardize our reputation among international countries.”
After the EU gave Thailand a yellow card, the junta set up the Command Center for Combatting Illegal Fishing in May to address the issue. A new fisheries law was enacted in November that overhauled licensing, monitoring and traceability.
To date, nearly 550 fishing vessels operating in and from Thai waters have been inspected, of which 90 were deemed to be illegal. Inspections have also been carried out at seafood factories and shrimp peeling sheds.
The new rules have stirred controversy among fishermen who failed to qualify for new licenses. Over 8,000 vessels have had their registrations cancelled.
2016 Nikkei Inc.