even that packed for the domestic market in Japan, is too 

 high priced for the average Japanese family to purchase. For- 

 eign sources estimate that Japanese consumption of canned tuna 

 has dropped from a pre-war level of 30 percent of the Japanese 

 pack to a current consumption of about 10 percent. This par- 

 ticular observation with respect to consumption of canned tuna 

 in Japan may be applied generally to all the Asiatic nations. 

 It is highly doubtful that any market for canned tuna could be 

 developed in this area because of the relatively high price of 

 the product. 



The other principal area of the world where great popula- 

 tions are concentrated outside of North America and Asia is^ of 

 course, Europe. In Europe, Italy, as has been previously indi- 

 cated, is a large tuna-consurdng nation. Fish consumption has 

 always been high in the United Kingdom. In the past that coun- 

 try has been an important market for canned salmon, principally 

 from the United States, with some being imported from Canada, 

 Japan, and the U.S.S.R. Since 1949, because of economic con- 

 ditions, the United Kingdom has considerably curtailed imports 

 of salmon. There has been an attempt to substitute canned tuna 

 from various sources. Canned tuna has been imported from Chile, 

 Peru, Portugal, Australia and other soft-currency countries o 

 Turkey also has undertaken to supply the United Kingdom with 

 canned tuna. 



Some of the other European countries, such as Belgium, 

 Switzerland, and France, also consume small amounts of canned 

 tuna. However, the amounts are small indeed and Europe as a 

 whole is not a tuna-eating area. Furthermore, foreign exchange 

 difficulties bar significant market development at present. Any 

 increased demand for canned tuna in Italy and any small increases 

 in the remainder of Europe are likely to be supplied by foreign 

 producers of the product, rather than the United States. 



Domestic producers are indirectly benefitted when foreign 

 suppliers export canned tuna to countries other than the United 

 States because of lessened competition. This fact, however^ 

 would be considerably more laeaningful to domestic producers if 

 such opportunities were much greater than they are now. 



88 



