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Monday, March 14, 2005
Taiwan threatens local tuna industry
* Group asks government to impose total ban on tuna unloaded by Taiwanse fishing vessels at Davao City fish port
GENERAL SANTOS CITY -- The country's P4.5 billion tuna industry is in danger of shrinking if the government allows Taiwanese fishing firms to continue dumping tuna in Davao City, warned a fishermen's group last week.
Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (Pamalakaya) sounded the alarm as it strongly asked the government to impose a total ban on tuna unloaded by Taiwanese fishing vessels in the government fish port in Daliao, Davao City, citing the risk it poses to the multi-billion local tuna industry.
"President Arroyo should decisively act on this matter in behalf of the small tuna operators and fishermen in Sarangani and General Santos City before it's too late," Pamalakaya national chair Fernando Hicap said in a statement.
"The government must stop the Taiwanese and other tuna fish producing nations from dumping their surplus here (in our country)," he added.
According to Pamalakaya, non-export grade tuna from Taiwan are being dumped daily at the Davao Fish Port and sold at the markets of Davao, Sarangani, and General Santos.
"We cannot afford our small tuna fisher folk to linger in hunger and poverty and our homegrown tuna industry die before our eyes," Hicap said.
The group said Taiwanese and other international fishing fleets are dumping tuna and this is killing the tuna industry in the country because the imported tunas are being sold in the provincial wet markets at cheaper cost.
This, it said, affects Filipino catch operators andthe 40, 000 small tuna fisher folk in Sarangani and General Santos City, the undisputed "Tuna Capital of the Philippines."
Hicap noted that the Fisheries Administrative Order (FAO) 195 issued in 1999 by the Department of Agriculture (DA) and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) has allowed Taiwanese tuna-carrying fishing boats and other foreign fishing vessels to dock and unload their tuna at the Davao Fish Port.
Under FAO 195, Taiwanese tuna and other foreign fisheries products transported to the Philippines are supposed to be sold to institutional buyers.
However, the Pamalakaya said the exporters and their local contacts managed to escape monitoring and bring the imported tuna to the domestic markets.
Hicap noted that a total of 120,000 kilos of tuna are being unloaded by three to four Taiwanese fishing boats everyday at the Davao Fish Port that have found their way to the local wet markets.
The Pamalakaya added that Taiwanese tuna is sold at P60 per kilo while the local tuna is priced at P120 per kilo.
The group warned that the massive dumping of heavily subsidized tuna imports would soon displace the tuna fishermen and their dependents.
For Bisaya stories from Davao. Click here. (March 14, 2005 issue)
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