Fantastic. Thank you.

Exactly. Great. We’ll send you the details.

You mentioned this presentation that was given to cabinet. That could be a good thing to demonstrate to Japanese fishing industry.

Taiwan is a huge supplier of fish to Japan. We thought it would be good for them to hear from the Taiwan government what your ambition is on this area. It’s in November. We can send an invite through. It would be good for someone from Taiwan to go there.

Great, good. The last thing is, and I don’t know if this is a political or an official level, but increasingly Japan is looking at these issues. We’ve been invited to an event in Japan in November with Japanese industry who are getting more interested in where our fish is ...

Of course. It also supports other goals, like decent work and ocean, safe, productive oceans.

Also, just stepping away from the detail, a detailed presentation of just saying, “Taiwan sees transparency as a way to address this issue. We’re embracing transparency. Here’s some examples of what we’re doing, but in general, we want to work hand-in-hand with the international community to push this forward.” We’d ...

Not that you’re tomorrow going to do all 10 things, but that in general, you agree that transparency is a means to exit the global problem of illegal fishing and associated issues, like human trafficking, and that you’re working on all these areas. If you guys are up for that, ...

Is Taiwan, I think it would be good to take credit for things that you’ve already done, but also, things you’re thinking about doing, and to make this simple statement to the world that you’re embracing transparency.

We work with a group that mainly focuses on this, and we’ll recommend that they enter that hackathon. I think that would be really good. I think, again, returning to the broader concept of transparency, we’d be really keen to see if there’s ways for obviously, being aware that you’ve ...

Yeah, this is much more simple. This is just people fishing.

I think that this problem lends itself to a similar collaboration, of bringing civil society, government, industry together to come up with what’s necessary and what’s beyond necessary, as you say.

Exactly, and that doesn’t go beyond what’s necessary.

In addition to EJF, there’s some really good groups working on this, on that issue of vessel location. A group called Global Fishing Launch, which I think now has a person working in Taiwan, I’m sure they could rise to that challenge of showing how to present data in way ...

The price of land transactions?

That’s really interesting.

With the precise fishing language.

Some other things are actually a lot more precise than just ocean. A way that some vessels will get their product to market is by trans-shipping, so coming across another vessel. Those interactions with other vessels is also information that we’d like to have public.

Yeah.

Ultimately, the types of things we’re trying to see is, is the vessel operating in an ocean where they shouldn’t be, or are they operating in…?

One of the things that more and more retailers, people who are ultimately going to sell the fish, want to be able to do is to look down the supply chain and verify that the vessel is behaving properly. For them to be able to access that information gives them ...

There are ways of addressing that. Some of the larger Taiwanese vessels are already using AIS, so you can see where they are. I think that, again, the public benefit versus the private, the need for privacy. I think there’s ways of compromising. Ultimately, to give confidence to…

What Indonesia, I think, has done is to delay. You see it three days later, so it doesn’t jeopardize the security of the vessel. Pirates don’t know where they are, because it’s three days delayed.

It’s maybe eight or nine countries so far.

Mainly, the vessel’s position. Then you know if the vessel’s, where it’s fishing, if it’s been…Different countries are starting to do this. Indonesia is doing this. Some South American countries are doing this. The EU is mandating AIS, which is a different way of showing where vessels are. Every country ...

For the large distant water vessels.

Was there any other point you wanted to highlight on the detail side of…?

It would be great to see Taiwan in the leading edge of that norm.

Emerging international, yeah. We’re trying to push it. It’s always a balance between being the only one, being the follower, as you say, and the mean. I think in two or three years, publishing beneficial will become the norm.

I think ultimately, I would appeal that data privacy issues shouldn’t…I understand you have to go through a legal process, but if somebody’s trying to access a public resource, a global resource, then I think that they should be willing to name themselves.

A lot of these things are very short term, like the numbering scheme and other things that Taiwan have already done. A few of them are more ambitious, like the beneficial ownership.

Exactly. That’s the one issue where translation might be an issue, but I’m sure we can come up with a smart solution to that.

An important part of transparency is where the flow of profits is going to beneficial ownership. In fisheries, that can be very confusing, because it gets wrapped up in vessels that might be trying to avoid tax, because they’re using other countries’ flags, and all sorts of issues.

That fits in with this international numbering scheme. There’s data sets that are standard. Most of them are numerical, so the translation issue isn’t a metric, numbers. That shouldn’t be a problem. The name of the vessel has presented problems in the past, but if everyone has this number, then ...

They’re building a global list of fishing vessels as well, which those IMO number lists can feed onto. There is good digital formats to plug into by doing that.

That’s the unique number from when it’s built to when it goes to the scrapyard. That’s a great first step. Again, shouting about it, saying, “Taiwan is going to do this. This is now official Taiwan policy.” There’s a way to publish your lists internationally. Eventually, there’s the FAO, which ...

There’s two things. There’s an international numbering scheme, which the International Maritime Organization operations, and which Taiwan’s vessels are now almost at 100 percent, or at 100 percent.

Fantastic. Do you want to maybe talk about some, a little bit more detail, then, about some of the things that Taiwan could do to close the gap?

Just very pleased to have the chance to discuss this with you.

Internationally, there’s a real opportunity to seize this and say, “Taiwan wants to lead on transparency. This is what we’re doing.” That’s our appeal.

For other countries to see Taiwan as a leader, we’re happy to help you really promote. If you are going to give every vessel a number, let’s shout about it. Let’s make it a big deal. I understand you don’t, there’s probably domestic reasons why you might not want to ...

People aren’t going to read the news in Mandarin, other than a few countries.

That means other countries, people aren’t going to…

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(laughter)

Potentially.

There was a brief discussion about one of our recommendations, the technical issue about giving every vessel a number. We found out that actually, now, everyone is going to have a number. I said to the guys in London, “The Taiwanese embassy is…” I think sometimes, you’re making these reforms, ...

I think as a corollary to that, I met with the Taiwanese office in London, the embassy in London, a few months ago, and they were saying, “Thank you for all your work,” blah, blah, blah, “but every time you make a video, it’s always critical. It’s always saying bad ...

The pitch really is for Taiwan to be one of the first countries to say that maybe you’re not there yet with the 10 recommendations, but to say that as a concept, you want to see transparency be the golden thread that runs through the fisheries, and that you embrace ...

…not only here on the island, but globally, on its fishing fleet. We’ve done a gap analysis between where Taiwan is currently and our 10 recommendations.

We think there’s a real chance here to seize the initiative and not lose any momentum from the end of the other part, but to say that Taiwan is embracing transparency…