No Taiwanese fishing vessel or trawler is fishing in the waters of St. Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG).
His Excellency Peter Sha-Li Lan, Taiwan’s ambassador to St. Vincent (SVG), disclosed this last week while speaking on the Boom FM OMG show.
Li-Lan is not the first Taiwanese ambassador to address the issue. In 2016, then Ambassador Baushuan Ger also spoke out against false accusations that fishing vessels from his country that fly the Vincentian flag are either poaching in Vincentian waters or evading tax.
Baushuan Ger in Kingstown on the celebration of Taiwan’s 105th National Day in 2016 said, “It is very sad that a few people in this country (SVG) have kept spreading false accusations” to this effect.
Li-Lan reiterated the point Baushuan Ger made in 2016.
“The fact is, I can say it loud and clear. Right now, there are only four Taiwanese fishing vessels registered under the flag of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and they are not even working in the waters of the Caribbean; they are working somewhere else. This information is correct because we checked the registration with the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishery here in St. Vincent”.
The St. Vincent Green Party has lamented the fact that Taiwan benefits from the SVG Fishing Licence in articles for years, but fisheries officials have refuted such claims.
In 2019, Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves stated that the revenue that this country gains from registering Taiwanese fishing vessels was not worth the headache, and the government was discouraging the registration of these vessels as the number of Taiwanese fishing vessels flying a Vincentian flag had dwindled to fewer than 20.
