Sealord in hoki call

Press, 5 December 1988, Page 19

Sealord in hoki call

PA Wellington The total allowable catch (TAC) for hoki should be reduced by half and research stepped up to preserve New Zealand’s deepwater resource, according to Sealord Products chief executive, Mr Brian Rhoades. Sealord claims to be Australasia’s biggest integrated fishing company. It is owned 76 per cent by Carter Holt Harvey and 24 per cent by Hohsui Corp of Japan. Its sales exceed $lOO million a year, 85 per cent of which is exported, mainly to the United States.

Speaking before the commissioning of a high-tech processing line dedicated to producing hoki fillets for the U.S. market, Mr Rhoades said there were indications that hoki resource as under pressure and it was up to the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries to finance research from resource rentals charged to the industry. In his commissioning address, the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, acknowledged the Government’s responsibility to fund and undertake fisheries resource research. But he said later that purchase of an $18.5 million deepwater research vessel approved last year had been “taken off the list earlier this year.”