Global Record of Fishing Vessels, Refrigerated Transport Vessels and Supply Vessels

Agreement on next steps reached in second Working Group meeting

23/03/2016

Experts from Member States of and observers to the FAO Committee on Fisheries (COFI), who attended the second Meeting of the Global Record Informal Open-Ended Technical and Advisory Working Group (GRWG) in Rome, 21–23 March 2016, agreed on several points regarding the development of the Global Record as a tool to fight IUU fishing.

These include: the substantial progress made on the Global Record information system and the necessity for specific data fields to be included; the importance of data quality and cross-checking of information; the facilitation of data submission from developed and developing Members; as well as detailed guidelines for Members to align data, systems and processes.

Moreover, the experts agreed upon the further development of a publicly-available operational pilot system; the need to promote long-term development, implementation and maintenance of the Global Record; and the importance for dedicated funds for capacity development for the alignment of the various systems to the technical specifications of the Global Record.

The next meeting of the GRWG will be held in 2017 to review advances made by the specialized core working groups and the Global Record project team.

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