International & Trade

September 2, 2014 — Thailand will have more opportunity to export foodstuffs to Russia after the former superpower recently banned food imports from the United States and the European Union in retaliation against sanctions imposed on it, the Commerce Ministry says.

Chutima Bunyapraphasara, permanent secretary of the ministry, said that after negotiating with Russian Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukaev, the government had asked for Russia to facilitate more imports from this country.

"Russia has shown high interest in importing foods and farm crops from Thailand after it banned imports from the EU and the US," Chutima said. "Those products are mainly rice, poultry, rubber, seafood products, and pineapple."

To increase exports, she said Thailand had asked Russia to relax sanitary requirements on plants and animals, and other regulations.

Read the full story from The Nation

September 1, 2014 — Fearing a Russian invasion and occupation of Alaska, the U.S. government in the early Cold War years recruited and trained fishermen, bush pilots, trappers and other private citizens across Alaska for a covert network to feed wartime intelligence to the military, newly declassified Air Force and FBI documents show.

Invasion of Alaska? Yes. It seemed like a real possibility in 1950.

“The military believes that it would be an airborne invasion involving bombing and the dropping of paratroopers,” one FBI memo said. The most likely targets were thought to be Nome, Fairbanks, Anchorage and Seward.

So FBI director J. Edgar Hoover teamed up on a highly classified project, code-named “Washtub,” with the newly created Air Force Office of Special Investigations, headed by Hoover protege and former FBI official Joseph Carroll.

The secret plan was to have citizen-agents in key locations in Alaska ready to hide from the invaders of what was then only a U.S. territory. The citizen-agents would find their way to survival caches of food, cold-weather gear, message-coding material and radios. In hiding they would transmit word of enemy movements.

This was not civil defense of the sort that became common later in the Cold War as Americans built their own bomb shelters. This was an extraordinary enlistment of civilians as intelligence operatives on U.S. soil.

Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Concord Monitor

August 28, 2014 — The following was released by Food Export USA-Northeast:

EU SEAFOOD LABELING REQUIREMENTS SEMINAR
SEPTEMBER 10, 2014 | NEW BEDFORD, MA

New EU Seafood Labeling Requirements Take Effect December 13, 2014.
Are You Ready?
 
Find out by attending a free informational seminar presented by NOAA Fisheries Representative to the EU Mr. Stéphane Vrignaud and
Timothy Hansen, Head of the NOAA Seafood Inspection Program
 
Wednesday, September 10, 2014
1:00 – 4:00 pm
SeaLoft Conference Room
Waypoint Events Center (connected to Fairfield Inn & Suites)
185 MacArthur Drive, New Bedford MA 02740
 
Topics include:
New EU labeling requirements
RASFF (procedures, reinforced control status…)
Triangular trade (health & catch certification procedures)
Health certification  (recent problems, how to improve)
Catch certification
Food Export-Northeast funding assistance for labeling modifications
 
Hosted by Food Export USA-Northeast
Co-Sponsors: Massachusetts Export Center
Massachusetts Department of Agriculture * Commerce RI

View the announcement here

TOKYO, Japan (AFP) – Japan plans to propose a 50 per cent cut on catches of young bluefin tuna in the Western and Central Pacific, officials said on Tuesday, in a historic shift aimed at safeguarding the at-risk species.

Tokyo – the world's biggest consumer of tuna – has been reluctant to reduce catches, despite mounting scientific evidence that stocks are near collapse.

But in what it called "an epochal move towards more thorough regulation", Japan plans to propose during an upcoming regional fisheries conference that the amount of young fish that can be caught is slashed to half the 2002-2004 average.

Read the full story from The Straits Times

August 26, 2014 — The Marine Products Export Development Authority (MPEDA) will raise seafood exports from $5 billion to $10 billion in the next three years.

As part of the initiative, officials will meet stakeholders and take up issues such improving production, development of harbours, maintenance of quality and popularising of seafood, which is in good demand in coastal districts.

Besides, MPEDA officials are holding training sessions for aqua farmers to give them tips on cultivating high-quality yields. Incidentally, the officials explained the problems facing aqua farmers to Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Nirmala Sitharaman during her recent visit to Andhra Pradesh.

Speaking to The Hindu on Monday, MPEDA Chairperson Leena Nair said India was earning nearly $300 billion in foreign exchange through exports (of all commodities) to which MPEDA is contributing $5 billion.

Read the full story at The Hindu

KARACHI, Pakistan — August 24, 2014 — Fishermen bustled through a ramshackle harbor, a knot of narrow streets and one-room houses on the edge of Karachi, as they prepared to set out to sea for the summer fishing season. But one man was going nowhere. As other fishermen mended their nets in a field, Abdul Shakoor hunched outside his front door, weaving a rug.

After 15 years on the boats, Mr. Shakoor said, he was seeking a new profession — a decision his wife, Zahida, heartily endorsed. “He’s getting into a boat again over my dead body,” she said firmly. “I won’t let him go.”

Mr. Shakoor, 34, returned to Karachi recently after a two-year spell in an Indian jail. He is one of several thousand fishermen, both Pakistani and Indian, who have been arrested at sea in recent years by the opposing countries’ navies. The fishermen are accused of crossing a border they cannot see and whose exact location is in dispute.

The quarrel goes back to the 1960s, when Pakistan and India first disagreed on the status of Sir Creek, a channel of water that separates Sindh Province in Pakistan from the Indian state of Gujarat. Since then, the argument has broadened into a wider dispute over how the land borders should extend into the Arabian Sea.

Over the years, in a bid to break the impasse, the two governments have commissioned surveys, held talks and proposed compromises. When Gen. Pervez Musharraf ruled Pakistan, he claimed to have come close to a settlement during secretive talks with his Indian counterpart, Manmohan Singh. But General Musharraf was ousted in 2008, and, like so much between India and Pakistan, Sir Creek remains unresolved.

Today, the two governments cannot even agree on which map to use when discussing their sea borders, lawyers say. And where diplomats have failed, fishermen are paying the price.

Read the full story from The New York Times

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [JAPAN REPORTS] — August 26, 2014 — Russian boats are engaging in illegal fishing activities, shifting the fishing grounds into the Japanese EEZ as regulation by the Russian authorities have been tightened within its own domestic waters.

The Hokkaido Fisheries Adjustment Office of the Fisheries Agency said it has collected during this summer 291 crab baskets that appeared have been set by Russian fishing boats in Japan’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) off Monbetsu, northeastern Hokkaido, as well as 2,482.9 kilograms of snow crab (corresponding to 6,439 crab) caught in those baskets.

The number of baskets collected show a sharp increase of 5.5-fold from a year ago, with the volume of poached crab swelling 4.8-fold.

The office suspected that the Russian boats are engaging in illegal fishing activities, shifting the fishing grounds into the Japanese EEZ as regulation by the Russian authorities have been tightened within its own domestic waters.

The Fisheries Agency's four enforcement vessels conducted this year’s basket collection activities twice in July 7-22 and July 26-August 4 in the area near the Russian border.

The vessels sank special equipment to the sea bottom centering on Kitami Yamato bank–which is a rich snow crab fishing ground—to retrieve illegally-set crab baskets and ropes.

This area is a fishing ground for four bottom trawlers belonging to the Monbetsu Fisheries Cooperative and two gillnet fishing boats belonging to the Abashiri Fisheries Cooperative. No crab basket fishery has been authorized.

In 2012, when the Fisheries Agency began the retrieval project, 86 baskets and 105.4 kg of snow crab (about 200 crab) and 40 kg of neptune whelk, among others, were collected.

The number in 2013 was 53 baskets with 516.2 kg of snow crab (about 1,200 crab).

In this summer, the area off Sarufutsu Village in Soya, a horsehair crab ground, was added to the project, where 156 crab baskets with 116.4 kg of horsehair crab (355 crab) and 11 kg of king crab (10 crab) were collected.

All the crab were released to the sea after being collected.

The office explained that findings of increased illegally-set fishing implements this summer is due to the stepped-up unlawful fishing activities by Russian vessels.

Regarding this development, the Monbetsu Coast Guard observed that Russian fishing vessels are apparently trying to shift fishing grounds for illegal catch into Japanese EEZ in an apparent bid to circumvent the reinforced surveillance by the Russian boarder police.

The imports of crab from Russia to Hokkaido have been dwindling from the peak of 64,400 tons in 2005, with those in 2013 falling to 25,200 tons, less than half of the peak year.

It is pointed out that the plausible cause of the decline is fortified regulations by the Russian authorities.

Being nervous about the continued outflow of crab resources, Russia concluded in 2011 with Japan an agreement on the prevention of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing that required submission of certificates of origin in trade in an apparent move to hold in check the poaching and smuggling of crab.

The agreement is expected to take effect within this year, after both countries completed necessary procedures.

In addition, informed sources say, Moscow has been strengthening surveillance on poaching boats since last fall.

This apparently prompted illegal Russian fishing vessels that had been expelled from the Russian waters to be sneak into the Japanese EEZ.

In April last year, the Monbetsu Coast Guard seized a Cambodian-registered cargo vessel (207 tons) with 15 Russians onboard for allegedly engaging in crab basket fishery with no license, and ordered payment of collaterals, which means monetary penalty.

A fishery gear maker in Busan, Korea, which makes crab baskets for Russians, says it had manufactured 100,000 units around 2006-2009 but now produces only 30,000 units.

The 57-year-old president of the firm explains that the slumping business is due to the shrinkage in demand for crab baskets as only authorized vessels can engage in crab fishing and the number of poaching boats decreased substantially.

Looking at the photos of crab baskets collected off Monbetsu last summer, he affirmed that they were Korean-made products exported to Russia.

It is highly likely that poached crab using these fishing gears are being shipped to Hokkaido as Russian products.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

SEAFOODNEWS.COM by John Sackton — Aug 25, 2014 — The Canadian – European free trade deal will be signed in Ottawa on Sept. 25th.

The full technical text, a 1500 page document, was leaked in a German publication a few weeks ago, and appears to conform with the public summary that has been published.

Speaking in PEI, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea said the lobster industry could be helped by the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement between Canada and Europe.

She says CETA may open up many new markets for P.E.I. companies.

"The lobster industry, it's a market of supply and demand, so, we as a government are working on the demand side opening trade agreements around the world to create more markets, but the industry has to soon step up and do that marketing," said Shea.

"And they are doing that in talking to many companies, they have diversified their markets a lot over the last 10 years."

According to a summary of the deal, 95.5% of current seafood duties will disappear on the day the agreement comes into force. After the deal is signed, it still has to be approved by both both the Canadian and the European parliments before taking effect. 

When it does, the following tariff reductions will apply to Canadian Seafood:

• immediate tariff elimination includes:

»» live lobster – current duties at 8%
»» frozen lobster – current duties from 6% and 16%
»» frozen scallops – current duties at 8%
»» frozen shrimp – current duties at 12%
»» cooked and peeled shrimp in retail packages – current duties from a rate of 20%
»» fresh or chilled hake (Whiting) – current duties at 15%
»» dried and salted cod – current duties at 13%
»» frozen herring – current duties at 15%
»» frozen mackerel – current duties at 20%
»» fresh or chilled halibut – current duties at 15%
»» salmon – from rates of up to 15%
»» processed salmon – current duties at 5.5%
»» snow crab – from rates up to 8%
»» fresh, chilled and frozen mussels – from rates up to 20%
»» dogfish – from a rate of 6%

IN addition, there are provisions for  duty-free transitional TRQs (Tariff reduction quotas)  with no end-use requirements for:

»» processed shrimp (two tariff lines) – 23,000 tonnes – current duties at 20%
»» frozen fillets of cod (one tariff line) – 1,000 tonnes – current duties at 7.5%

Also Canada will get non-tariff quotas for the following products produced in Canada from imported materials:

• prepared or preserved salmon: 3,000 tonnes
• cooked and frozen lobster: 2,000 tonnes
• prepared and preserved sardines: 200 tonnes
• processed shrimp: 5,000 tonnes

For a number of years Canada has been diversifying its seafood markets to reduce its dependency on the US.  The trade agreement will accelerate this process, and bring European buyers agressively into competion for products like lobster, crab, scallops and mussels.

Giving Canadian producers an 8%, 10% or even 20% cost reduction for sales to the EU will allow them to sell more products outside the US, and consequently receive higher prices for products sold here as they will be less subject to excess inventory and gluts.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

 

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Solomon Star] by Moffat Mamu — August 22, 2014 — The slow supply of timely data from tuna catch by fishing nations each year remains a headache for tuna organisations.

And fisheries managers and tuna officials are concern that some Asian nations are not providing operational catch data essential to accurate stock assessments.

This was highlighted early this week in Suva, Fiji during the second media training organised by the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) in association with Pew environment group.

PNA chief executive Dr Transform Aqorau said distant water fishing nations need to take action to reduce catches on the high seas by first providing operational catch data required by their membership in the  Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC).

“PNA is providing the commission with all catch data from fishing within our waters,” he said.

“The Asian fishing nations need to do the same for their catches on the high seas. The lack of data leaves gaps in the stock assessments and undermines the sustainability of the fishery for everyone because we are forced to make decisions based on incomplete information,” he said.

The PNA boss said the refusal to provide fishing data to regional management authorities is tantamount to illegal fishing.

Another tuna company official suggested that fishing nations that are refusing to provide timely tuna catch data to regional management organisations should be penalised.

Singapore-based managing director of Tri-Marine International, Philip Roberts said tuna monitoring organisations can provide accurate data and if its members don't provide the data, they should be penalised.

Mr Roberts said illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing includes misreporting and under-reporting.

Vessels engaging in illegal fishing have been blacklisted throughout the western and central Pacific and have been forced to pay heavy fines to resume fishing.

“Tuna is of huge importance to Pacific islanders,” said Dr Aqorau.

“It is not only the financial value of the fishery and increasing revenue that the PNA is generating for its members.
“Tuna is the lifeblood of islanders who depend on a healthy fishery for food security.”

PNA has been a leader in implementing conservation measures that have the two-fold impact of maintaining tuna stocks for the long-term and increasing the value of the fishery for the islands by limiting fishing effort, Dr. Aqorau said.

Dr Aqorau also revealed that there was a record of 2.65 million metric tons of tuna was hauled from the Western Pacific in 2012 valued at US$7 billion (K17b) compared to a marginally smaller catch last year.

He said PNA had been a leader in enforcing conservation measures to ensure the tuna fishery remained sustainable in the long-term.

PNA bloc nations – The Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, and Tuvalu – control the world’s largest sustainable tuna purse seine fishery.

Under the theme, “The value and economics of Pacific tuna,” journalists from seven countries engaged in discussion and debate on issues surrounding the industry, including status of tuna stocks, how policies of government and regional fisheries organizations affect the tuna industry, and how PNA management of the purse seine skipjack fishery has resulted in a four-fold increase in revenues flowing to the eight member nations.

This story originally appeared on Seafood.com, a subscription site. It is reprinted with permission.

August 20, 2014 — The list includes smolt of salmon and trout, lactose-free milk and milk products, food supplements, seed potatoes, set onions, sweet corn for sowing and peas for sowing. Also vitamin and mineral supplements, flavor additives and protein concentrates of animal and vegetable origins are excluded from the ban, Forbes reports.

The decree, which was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, clearly states that smolt of salmon and trout is excluded from the ban. The Russian Fish Union last week warned that Russia will have slaughtered its last farmed salmon by 2016 if the import of smolt from Norway is not resumed. Russia does not have any smolt production of its own yet.

Read the full story from the Barents Observer