February 22, 2016 — Top fishery officials are gathering in Morocco this week to discuss sustainable trade practices in a $144 billion industry that provides developing countries with more export revenue than meat, tobacco, rice and sugar combined.
Lower-income nations’ exports of fish and fishery products reached $78 billion in 2014, more than triple the value of global rice exports, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“Sustainably serving those lucrative markets is of critical importance to developing countries, where most fish are produced, whether caught in the wild or grown in cages or farm ponds,” the agency’s news release says.
The biennial high-level meeting of FAO’s Sub-Committee on Fish Trade, being held in Agadir through Friday, 26 February, has drawn delegations of fisheries ministries from more than 50 countries to discuss emerging governance needs of the fisheries sector.
“Trade in fish is much more important than people think, both in absolute and relative terms,” said Audun Lem, Deputy-Director in FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Policy and Resources Division, who serves as Secretary of the meeting.
Dialogues will help FAO, its member countries and industry representatives understand new trends, opportunities and challenges in the fishing sector, fostering the development of strategies that can “best position developing countries to develop their fisheries sectors in a sustainable manner and to maximize their economic benefit from the growth we expect to witness,” Mr. Lem said. Traceability