After four years since Ecuador received a yellow card as a warning from the European Union (EU) because they consider it an uncooperative country in the fight against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing; this penalty would be a few weeks away from being lifted and a return to the green card.

Julio José Prado, Minister of Production, Foreign Trade, Investments and Fisheries, indicated last Tuesday on his Twitter that Ecuador “is in the last step not only to get out of the yellow card, but also to turn the fishing sector into one of the most traceable in the South America.”

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According to Prado, Ecuador would complete 100% of the process needed to remove the yellow card and it could be lifted next May.

These good expectations, according to the fishing sector, are the result of the fact that Ecuador has already fulfilled all the demands of the Europeans, about 29 points, but above all with two main ones: a new law that is in line with the current requirements of the fight against illegal fishing and the development of traceability control of fish products , pointed out Bruno Leone, president of the National Fishery Chamber (CNP).

Speaking about the change in regulations, Leone explained that the previous law, the Fisheries Development Act, which was in force since 1974, did not meet the requirements of the Europeans.

“That law was so old that it did not even think about the development of the shrimp industry,” said the president of the CNP.

Regarding traceability, he pointed out that, according to the leader, a high-level technological platform has been developed for this control, which no other country in the world has.

Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission

“Ecuador is the second world producer of tuna with about 580,000 tons a year, but its own fleet catches only more or less 200,000, so you have to import the difference so that the factories have enough raw material to work,” he explained. .

He reminded that last December, the EU General Convention on the Sea confirmed these developments during a visit to the country, but the yellow card was not removed because they asked to designate a department for patronage, that is, a department where the causes and files that are compiled on the basis of a possible violation will be processed. which according to Leone is already finished.

“Then there was the topic of the tonnage of some ships, a side issue, nothing special. There were a few small differences between what was said in the Ecuadorian documents in relation to the CIAT (Inter-American Commission for Tropical Tuna) documents, that has already been resolved, that’s why Minister Prado says that they will pick us up in May, we are ready,” he said. is Leone who hopes that this will actually happen and that the agenda of European officials will not delay their arrival in the country. If that happens, the commissioner’s visit would remain for the European summer, which is next August.

EL UNIVERSO newspaper consulted the Deputy Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Andrés Arens, about this process.

He explained that the process consists of a series of visits to the General Directorate for the Sea of ​​the European Union, where progress is evident. However, he specified that the verification is not only about the achieved progress, but also about its implementation and consistent and continuous application.

“For this reason, in every visit we have had since 2022, the year in which visits continued after the pandemic, we have received congratulations from the relevant unit of the General Administration for the Sea,” said Arens, who emphasized that few countries in the world will be comparable to today’s fishing Ecuador, not only in the volume of production and product quality, but also in the sustainability guaranteed by the industry and confirmed by the competent authority.

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The deputy minister clarified that the yellow card itself does not foresee any sanctions or different treatment of Ecuadorian products, but its adoption will be another demonstration that Ecuador is a responsible producer of sustainable products.

Although Arens did not confirm the date of the next visit of the Directorate General for the Sea of ​​the European Union to Ecuador, he pointed out that: “This will not be the last visit of the Directorate General for the Sea to the European Union, but we hope that it will be the last visit under the regime of yellow cards”.

Fishing is one of Ecuador’s main export products. Canned fish is the third non-oil shipment from the country to the world, after shrimp and bananas.

In 2022, these sales amounted to 1,367 million dollars, with a growth of 8%; while fish exports reached $269 million and instead recorded a 7% decline, according to official Central Bank data released by the Ministry of Production.

However, in the first two months of 2023, according to data from the Ecuadorian Federation of Exporters (FedExpor), canned fish suffered a 9% drop in exports from $187 million in foreign currency, likewise, tuna and fish fell 26% in shipments from $61 million export dollars.

Investment of 60 million dollars until 2025

Regarding the investments that Ecuador has made to achieve results that will return it to green card status, Deputy Minister Arens revealed that from 2020 to 2025, about $60 million has been allocated to investment projects to improve capacity in human talent, the number people and their training, as well as the physical and technological resources needed to monitor, control and supervise fishing activities in the country.

“There is an action plan that represents a road map and that has brought Ecuador international recognition in all the international fishing forums in which it participates,” stressed Arens, who also emphasized that the fishing sector will be the first industry to have a Government 4.0 administration.

60 million dollars were invested in the progress of the fishing sector shown to the representatives in the European Parliament, in order to get a yellow card

This, the deputy minister explained, was achieved through the implementation of the integrated system of aquaculture and fisheries (SIAP).

“With this software the management of the deputy ministry’s processes is automated in such a way that 140 processes are systematized and in the test phase so that in a few weeks all users will be using this tool to interact with the authorities”, said Arens, who also stated that it is a paperless system, which guarantees the traceability of fishing resources from their capture or extraction to the final consumer, with meticulous details of each stage of the production chain.