Squid fishing boats will leave tuna

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33676, 28 October 1974, Page 12

Squid fishing boats will leave tuna

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

TOKYO, October 27.

Japan has renewed a gentlemen’s agreement that Japanese squid fishing boats operating off the New Zealand coast during the coming season will not fish for tuna.

“This is good news for New Zealand fishermen,” the general manager of the Fishing Industry Board (Mr J. S. Campbell) said in Tokyo.

There were 156 squid boats off the New Zealand coast last season and about the same number are expected to leave Japan early next month for the new season.

Mr Campbell said the Japanese had between 50 and 60 long-line tuna boats fishing well off the New Zealand coast but their catch was down, costs were up 80 per cent, and the price had gone down.

The Japanese said they caught 5000 tons of blue fin

tuna in the Australian and New Zealand area last season. New Zealand sells some tuna to Japan, mostly skip jack and albacore. ‘FRANK TALKS’ Mr Campbell had what he described as a very constructive and frank exchange of views with representatives of Japan’s biggest fishing companies, fishermen’s organisations and cooperatives. Earlier, he told the JapanNew Zealand businessmen’s conference in Tokyo that no country could open its fishing grounds to all-comers and New Zealand had a responsibility to see there was proper management of its fish resources.

' Further development depended on New Zealand getting access to markets that would take some of the less popular species of fish. “One thing that would help our industry to develop would be the ability of our fishermen to sell every fish he can catch,” Mr Campbell said. CATCHING MORE Rejecting suggestions that the New Zealand fishing industry was inefficient, he said some 60ft to 70ft trawlers with three-man crews were catching more than one million pounds, which was more per man than fishermen in other countries. Mr Campbell said New Zealand was disappointed that some countries were using rather destructive fishing methods including small mesh nets. N.Z. PROBLEMS Listing problems facing New Zealand in increasing its export to Japan, he said one of these was the fickleness of Japanese buyers, who seemed to make sudden decisions to stop taking supplies. Others included Japanese restrictions on importing fish like squid which were on a quota system, the sensitiveness of the Japanese market to supply and price, the high cost of air-freighting fresh fish, and specialised Japanese presentation requirements which were not acceptable to other markets. With the possibility of a 200-mile fishing zone, and with the heavy increase in fuel costs, many Japanese companies had been seeking ways of entering into joint ventures with New Zealand fishing companies, Mr Campbell said.

“Generally trading arrangements are preferred to joint ventures provided such trading arrangements can be profitable to both sides,” he said.