FISHERY BULLETIN: VOL. 70, NO. 2 



Southeast Asia, domestic demand for fish is gen- 

 erally quite strong and most of the catches are 

 consumed locally, except for such high-priced 

 international commodities as shrimp or tuna. 

 Some of these nations, particularly the Philip- 

 pines and Ceylon, import large quantities of fish- 

 ery products, some of them from Japan. There 

 is no great surplus of low-priced fish in this gen- 

 eral region. 



The proportion of the combined value of fish- 

 ery products in the total export value of Japan 

 has been decreasing steadily, only 2.7% in 1968 

 and perhaps around 2% by 1971. Major export 

 items in recent years have been frozen tuna, 

 other frozen products, canned tuna, canned 

 salmon, canned mackerel, and other canned 

 products. Domestic demand for tuna is grow- 

 ing. Even canned albacore, which used to be a 

 product entirely for export, is now consumed in 

 a substantial quantity. 



The Japanese people are extremely flexible 

 in their consumption of fishes, and there is some 

 demand for just about everything coming out of 

 the sea. There are, however, certain trends of 

 consumer preference that have become fairly ob- 

 vious in the most recent years. First, demand 

 for high-priced fishery products, such as raw 

 tuna meat (particularly bluefin) , shrimps, crabs, 

 certain species of cephalopods, salmon, salmon 

 and herring roe, certain species of flounders, 

 yellowtail, eels, and a variety of species pro- 

 duced in inshore waters, is becoming stronger 

 as the standard of living rises rapidly. Since 

 most of these forms have limited supplies, their 

 prices are pushed up sharply, more or less in 

 proportion to the increase in the per capita in- 

 come. Second, the sale of frozen seafood is going 

 up very fast. This is, to a large extent, because 

 of tremendous improvements made in recent 

 years in the quality of frozen seafood through 

 the introduction of better equipment. Third, 

 demand for fish ham and sausage, which used 

 to be very high, is now going down. This may 

 be due to a greater consumption of true ham 

 and sausage. Fourth, the production and con- 

 sumption of traditional fish cakes, such as "ka- 

 maboko," "chikuwa," and their relatives using 

 "surimi" as material, have gone up sharply as 

 the supply of pollack surimi increased. Use of 



other species than pollack for these products 

 has decreased at the same time. Fifth, demand 

 for fish meal as feeds for livestock, poultry, and 

 aquaculture is very strong. It is met largely 

 from three sources: pollack, mackerel, and im- 

 pprts. It is obvious that further increases in 

 fish meal consumption will have to be met largely 

 from imports, although domestic production may 

 also grow further. 



Even in Japan, large fluctuations in the catch- 

 es of pelagic species are real problems. For ex- 

 ample, the total catch of saury in 1970 was only 

 85,000 metric tons, as compared with over half 

 a million tons in 1959, but in value the catch 

 was the second largest in history because of the 

 high price of saury, which used to be one of the 

 cheapest fishes. Much of the sharply increasing 

 catch of mackerel has gone into fish meal and oil, 

 with smaller quantities used for direct consump- 

 tion and canning, the latter mostly for export. 



Conclusions 



Examining sector by sector, the future of the 

 Japanese fishing industry in general, and dis- 

 tant-water fisheries in particular, does not seem 

 bright. Possibilities for further expansion are 

 limited. 



In inshore waters, major eflForts are required 

 to minimize the effects of pollution on the pro- 

 ductivity of fishing and aquaculture. For coastal 

 and oflfshore fisheries around the Japanese 

 islands, better management could improve the 

 efficiency of fishing and perhaps total produc- 

 tion. The desirability of further decreasing the 

 fishing eflfort of coastal trawl fisheries is obvious. 

 For coastal pelagic species which make up the 

 greatest portion of the catch from waters around 

 Japan, management strategies based on scien- 

 tific research have not yet been established, and 

 the fisheries are always subject to large fluctu- 

 ations in the catches of a few important species. 



Distant-water fisheries are facing more and 

 more difficult international problems, and due to 

 a general trend of extension of national juris- 

 diction, further restrictions are expected. More 

 exploratory fishing (particularly deepwater 

 trawling), joint ventures, fishing in waters of 

 national jurisdiction under conditions set by 



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