Offshore zone may wait

Press, 27 August 1977, Page 6

Offshore zone may wait

NZPA staff correspondent Port Moresby! New Zealand has two possible dates — October 1 or April 1 — for establishing its 200-mile exclusive economic zone, the Prime Minister (Mr Muldoon) said on his arrival in Port Moresby yesterday. Mr Muldoon, who is in Papua New Guinea for a meeting next week of the South Pacific Forum, gave an impromptu airport press conference. after officials had said he would not do so. He said New Zealand supported the idea of a South Pacific fisheries agency and as a metropolitan State was ready to give assistance in administration, surveillance and policing of fisheries zones. “Our interest in the forum sense is that we are prepared to help,” he said. In giving the two alternative dates which New Zealand had for declaring an economic zone, Mr Muldoon

made it clear that he con-| sidered such zones “a major; issue affecting the economies , of each separate State.” A report from Hong Kong: says that the Minister of! Fisheries (Mr Bolger) arrived' in Hong Kong from Seoul yesterday in no doubt that South Korea wants rights io a big percentage of the catch within New Zealand’s proposed offshore zone. Over a recent five-month period, the South Koreans had taken 26,000 tonnes of fish from New Zealand waters, according to figures he was given in Seoul, he said. He discussed with South Korean Ministers, including the Prime Minister, New Zealand’s wish to develop markets for its agricultural products. “I suggested it might at times be better for Korea to import more of the finished product, rather than j grain, in its attempts to build lup a beef industry,” he said.