The future of Thai seafood exports to Europe depends on measures to tackle illegal fishing but the prime minister says he cannot guarantee that the country will meet the deadline.
Thailand has been given six months to prove to the European Union that it is cleaning up the fishery and eliminating forced and slave labour. If it cannot do so, it could lose the opppoprtunity to export 575 million euros a year worth of seafood to the 27-country bloc.
The country no longer has the luxury of time, Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha said in his weekly television address on Friday night.
"I cannot guarantee that we will able to solve the problem in six months," he said. "It depends on everybody, whether or not we can meet this time frame."
His statement ran counter to that of Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwon, who promised earlier that the EU would withdraw its "yellow card" within the next six months.
However, most people in the fishing industry believe that Gen Prawit's optimism is misplaced and say real reform will take a long time as successive governments have ignored mounting problems.
To eliminate the threat of an EU ban, Thailand needs to improve fishery-related laws and make more serious efforts to prevent illegal catches and the use of forced labour by fishing vessels.
Authorities have registered 50,970 trawlers as part of its campaign, according to the prime minister. A source at the Marine Department said on Thursday that about 1,000 more remained to be documented.
GPS and vessel monitoring systems must be installed in all craft in the Thai fleet to keep them in check and make sure that the ships do not damage the environment and violate fishery regulations.
"We have to know where they are catching fish, otherwise we cannot regulate them," the prime minister said.
The government agreed on Thursday to set up fishery control centres in all 22 coastal provinces to monitor all trawlers and their catch.
Gen Prayut stressed that cooperation from the private sector was essential to ensure that the country would not face an EU ban.
Some commentators had urged Gen Prayut to deal with the issue by using Section 44 of the interim constitution, which gives him almost unlimited power.
"I cannot use Article 44 to solve every problem," he said on Friday, though he indicated that it could be applied in to certain specific situations.
"From now on, I will set up centres in different ports. I will assign soldiers and police to guard them. Each ship that comes and goes must cooperate with us. That is how I will use [Section 44],"
he said.
"If they leave without reporting, if they don't know where their crews are, that's wrong, and that's what causes the problem that gives me headaches every day."
Thailand exported fishery products worth 575 million euros to EU members last year. The figure accounted for about one-third of the value of Thai seafood shipments worldwide and 3% of all Thai exports shipped to the EU.
