Japan Seeking Saury Deal without Proposing Numerical Catch Limit

June 26, 2018

Tokyo- The Japanese government has presented a proposal to put a ceiling on saury catches in the northern Pacific, informed sources said Monday.

But the government refrained from specifying the catch limit numerically in the proposal to member economies of an upcoming international conference in July, anticipating a strong backlash particularly from China, which sees no need to restrict Pacific saury catches, the sources said.

Japan intends to prevent overexploitation of the popular fish by China and Taiwan.

At last year's conference on the management of saury resources, Japan proposed curbing catches with a numerical limit but failed to strike an agreement due to China's strong objection.

The government has decided to put priority on gaining participating economies' consent with introducing a framework for regulating saury catches, while leaving specific catch volumes for negotiations chiefly with China based on a resources estimate to be calculated by the scientific committee in April next year, according to the sources.

The Japanese proposal to the July meeting calls for introducing an unspecified overall saury fishing limit and allocating coastal and high-sea catch quotas under the limit to each of the member economies based on past records.

At a scientific committee meeting in April, China insisted that fishing regulations are unnecessary because resources are abundant, a Fisheries Agency official said.

A senior agency official said that China will certainly object to the proposal, expecting tough negotiations to continue.

Japan was the world's leading Pacific saury fisher some 10 years ago, harvesting about 300,000 tons a year. But the country was able to catch only 80,000 tons in 2017, while Taiwan caught 110,000 tons and China 50,000 tons.

The agency believes that large Chinese and Taiwanese ships have been overfishing. Jiji Press