Marine resources may be overfished

Marine resources may be overfished

JAKARTA (JP): Many marine resources across the world will be
overfished in the next decade, while many countries will apply
stricter trading rules on fishery imports, an executive of the
Association of Indonesian Fishing Companies (Gappindo) predicts.

Bambang Suboko told a seminar here yesterday that Indonesian
fishing firms must anticipate these developments and improve
their operations if they wanted to survive in future.

Yesterday's seminar, held to commemorate the 16th World Food
Day, was held jointly by the Ministry of Agriculture's
Agribusiness Agency and the State Ministry of Food.

Bambang said that rapid developments in the world's fishing
industry were causing overfishing, which depletes marine
resources.

Catches of skipjack and yellowfin tuna fish, which are mainly
used in canning, have more than tripled in the last two decades,
he said.

Chinese tuna-fishing ships have started entering the southern
Pacific ocean and most have sold their catches to Japan at very
low prices, he said.

"This has had a direct impact on countries like South Korea,
Taiwan, Indonesia and Thailand, which are major competitors in
the field," Bambang said.

In the next decade many fish-processing industries will move
to low-cost countries near marine resources, he said.

Fresh and frozen fish will continue to dominated the fish-
processing industry. They made up 43.3 percent of the total
fishery trade in 1992, compared with 38.5 percent in 1982.

Quotas

Bambang warned that tariff wars were likely to continue with
importing countries imposing more import quotas.

"About 18 percent of Japan's imports are based on quotas," he
said. Global import quotas are applied for cod, hake, yellow-
tails, mackerel, sardines, horse-mackerel, scallops and yellowfin
tuna.

France, for example, imposes global quotas on imports of
canned tuna and sardines, while Norway applies quotas for fresh
mackerel. Sweden imposes quotas for herring and cod.

"Quotas are restrictive trade barriers which exporters cannot
penetrate, no matter how efficiently and well they perform,"
Bambang said.

Other restrictive measures that exporters must anticipate
include the United States' requirement that shrimp trawlers use
turtle-eliminating devices, and the European Union's Export
Inspection Agency's quality controls.

Bambang said shrimp would continue to be a prime commodity on
the world market, particularly pond-farmed shrimp.

Although Indonesia's shrimp production has been declining
since 1992 because of disease, production in countries such as
Bangladesh, Vietnam and India has increased.

In the future, Bambang said, more countries would focus on
shrimp production.

Bonar Pasaribu, a lecturer at the Bogor Agricultural
University's School of Fisheries, said Indonesia could still
increase its catch of skipjack tuna, groupers, shark and squids.

"But shrimp and tuna stocks are either fully or over-exploited
in Indonesia," he said.

Currently, 2,127 fishing vessels with Indonesian flags operate
in the Mallaca Strait, South China Sea, Sulawesi Sea, Arafura
Sea, Indian Ocean, Banda Sea and Java Sea.

There are 945 fishing vessels with foreign flags operating in
the South China Sea, Sulawesi Sea, Arafura Sea and Indian Ocean.
(pwn)