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)