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South Korea to foster tuna farming
Kim Hyun-cheol
South Korea will introduce a plan to foster the farming of tuna, one of its main fishery exports.
To better deal with growing international restrictions on tuna fishing, the country will support other coastal countries to secure their tuna resources and develop ways to farm the fish, the Ministry of Food, Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries said Tuesday.
Tuna is the biggest export item among Korea's farming and fisheries products, with their outbound shipments reaching $332 million last year. Harvests by Korean fishing boats amounted to 290,000 tons last year, accounting for 42 percent of the country's overall production from deep-sea fisheries.
However, excessive tuna fishing has caused a drop in their numbers across the world. Species like the bluefin tuna have been the subject of intensive discussions in fisheries-related international organizations due to recent overfishing, according to the ministry.
The Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission, a body in charge of fishing in the southern Pacific Sea, plans to reduce the fishing quota for bigeye tuna by 10 percent per year in phases over the next three years. Korea gets 95 percent of its tuna from the ocean.
The ministry expected Korea will turn to tuna farming in four or five years, as the fish it is cultivating off Jeju Island are currently in good condition. A total of 400 young bluefin tunas are accommodated there.
``Complete tuna farming will be possible when the fish start to produce fertile roe, and Korea will also be a resource-developing country of tuna by releasing artificially produced roe into the ocean,'' said Park Jong-gook, the minister's manager of marine policies.
International efforts will speed up as well in an attempt to secure a stable tuna haul. Since nearly 80 percent of Korea's tuna harvest is made in exclusive economic zones of small island countries, mutual cooperation will decide the future of Korea's tuna-fishing industry, the ministry said.
In September, the ministry hosted an economic cooperation summit with an association of Polynesian countries, where it was agreed to form a consultative body to beef up economic cooperation between Korea and the eight member countries ― Papua New Guinea, Kiribati, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Micronesia, Nauru and Palau.
Official development assistance will be expanded for those countries, the ministry said.
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