Thailand clamps down on rogue fishing to avoid EU ban

Mahachai, Thailand

A BELATED Thai clampdown on illegal fishing is forcing unlicensed vessels ashore, threatening to paralyse the key industry as the kingdom desperately tries to avoid a European Union (EU) ban on exports worth US$1 billion a year.

Barrels of fish packed in ice are rolled off boats at a bustling port in Samut Sakhon, a coastal province near Bangkok, by the Myanmar and Cambodia migrant workers who prop up the world's third-largest seafood producer. But many will sit idle from Wednesday, say their Thai employers, who have failed to obtain necessary fishing permits under a raft of new government rules aimed at cleaning up the shadowy industry.