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Friday, October 08, 2004
RP eyes China as new tuna market
By Bong S. Sarmiento
THE Philippines, the world's second largest tuna producer, is exerting efforts to penetrate the huge Chinese market with local tuna products.
Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap said his agency and the Department of Trade and Industry have been closely working for the country's tuna products to infiltrate the market of China, which has an approximate population of 1.2 billion as of the year 2000.
"We are developing new markets, like China, for Philippine tuna," he told participants in the recent 6th National Tuna Congress here.
According to Yap, China offers a growing market for sea that tuna exporters could explore.
He said that presently the main market for the country's canned tuna products are the United States and the European Union, accounting for 80 percent of the country's canned tuna exports with an earning equivalent of at least $160 million yearly.
Processed tuna sashimi, which usually ends up in Japan as well as in the US and EU, rakes in some $50 million export earnings per year for the country.
Yap said the government and tuna industry leaders have been working out to make the Philippines the world's top tuna producer by 2020.
Taiwan is presently the world's top tuna producer, with the Philippines trailing it with a production of 300,000 metric tons a year, according to Yap.
The country's tuna industry reportedly employs 100,000 workers and has a fleet of nearly 4,000 large, medium and small purse seiners and pump boats.
Of the nine canneries in the country, seven are located here.
Ten of the country's 15 sashimi-processing plants can also be found here, making this city as the undisputed "Tuna Capital of the Philippines."
To surpass Taiwan, Yap stressed the importance of cooperation among the players in the tuna industry in preserving the country's marine resources.
"There is a need to educate people in the coastal communities on conservation and exploitation of marine resources," he noted.
Yap said they are closely working with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources in conserving the country's marine resources, as this is crucial to the sustainability of the fisheries sector.
He urged tuna catchers to strictly observe the ban on small-mesh nets to allow juvenile tuna to reach their desired maturity.
For further sustainability of the tuna industry, Yap said the agency, through the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), backed the development of a national tuna management plan, which will put a cap on the number of fishing boats, require a vessel monitoring system, and set standards for fishing gear and reporting systems.
It may be recalled that the Philippines has been an active participant of the seven-year Multi-Lateral High Level Conference on Management of Migratory Fish Species, which resulted in the forming of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission that sets annual quotas on tuna catch, allowable catches among fishing nations and coastal states, and standards on fishing gear and catch reporting systems.
(October 8, 2004 issue)
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