enacted an agreement in 1992 placing a limit on the 

 number of foreign purse seiners eligible for licensing 

 in the Pacific Island region. 



n. Outlook 



The early 1990s is a tune of transition for the 

 Asian distant-water fishing fleets. Distant-water vessel 

 owners from the developed economies of Japan, the 

 ROK, and Taiwan are hiring more foreign labor from 

 developing countries and modernizing their fishing 

 gear, but there is little evidence to suggest that these 

 efforts will be sufficient to make distant-water fishing 

 a viable source of long-term revenue. Increasing 

 international regulation of high-seas fisheries and 

 decreased access to coastal fishing grounds will 

 accelerate a process where developing Asian countries 

 such as China take over catch operations from their 

 industrialized Asian neighbors. 



Other developing Asian countries may become 

 increasingly involved in distant-water fisheries. India, 

 Indonesia, and Iran, three coimtries with significant 

 natural and human resources, are currently making 

 plans for distant-water fleet development. Iran and 

 Indonesia are concentrating on exploiting tuna 

 resources, while India has been developing a trawler 

 industry supplying its nascent surimi industry. 



A. Trawlers 



The distant-water trawling fleets should show the 

 greatest decreases in effort among all Asian distant- 

 water fleets. Access to both high-seas and coastal 

 fishing grounds has become extremely limited as 

 groundfish stocks which once supported these fleets 

 (e.g. Alaska pollock, Atlantic cod) have been severely 

 over-fished. The Japanese distant-water trawler fleet 

 is clearly on the wane and will be significantly 

 reduced, if not entirely eliminated, by the end of this 

 century. The ROK and Taiwan fleets face similarly 

 bleak prospects and may also have to significantly 

 curtail their distant-water trawling operations. China 

 is the only major Asian distant-water fishing nation 

 which plans to expand its distant-water trawling in the 

 near future. Much of this expanded effort will 

 probably go into coastal fisheries in the eastern Atlantic 

 off the west coast of Africa, southwestern and 



southeastern Atlantic fisheries off Argentina and Chile, 

 and in the North Pacific peanut hole. 



Projection for Trawling Fleet 



North Pacific Trawlers: The Asian North Pacific 

 trawler fleet should decrease significantly from the 

 1991 catch level of 450,000 tons. If die donut hole 

 moratorium continues past 1994 and stringent 

 regulation of the peanut hole takes place, the level of 

 effort in 1995 will probably be considerably lower. 



Other Trawlers: The Asian distant-water trawler 

 fleets fishing in other regions of the world should also 

 continue to decrease, although at a slower rate than in 

 the North Pacific. This limited decrease would result 

 primarily from increased Chinese effort which would 

 nearly offset significantly reduced effort by Japan and 

 Taiwan. 



B. Squid Jiggers 



With the demise of the high-seas pelagic squid 

 driftnet fishery, squid jigging has become the dominant 

 method for supplying the East Asian squid markets. 

 Although the total number of Asian jiggers involved in 

 this fishery will probably not expand much beyond its 

 current level, these jiggers will probably fish in many 

 different grounds, primarily off South America. 



Traditionally, Japanese, ROK, and Taiwan jiggers 

 have targeted squid in the waters of the Falkland 

 Islands and New Zealand. In the early-1990s, effort 

 has decreased sharply off New Zealand, and, to a 

 lesser extent, in the Falkland Islands. Many Japanese 

 and Taiwan jiggers are now fishing in Argentine waters 

 as a result of new Argentine legislation which permits 

 foreign fishing. Jiggers from Japan, the ROK, and 

 Taiwan, are also jigging in Peruvian waters. 

 Exploratory jigging by Asian jiggers is reportedly 

 taking place in Mexico, Ecuador, and Brazil. 



It is clear that the Asian jigging fleet is canvassing 

 Latin American waters thoroughly in an effort to find 

 lucrative stocks of Illex squid. One stumbling block 

 for the expansion of this fishery is die high access fees 

 demanded by coastal nations (e.g. Peru) which may 

 make fishing in certain coastal areas unprofitable. It 

 would not be surprising to see China, which currently 

 has no distant-water jiggers, enter diis fishery 

 sometime in the mid-1990s. If China does so, it would 



