Papua New Guinea has vast areas of fishing ground and with a well planned and successful tuna management and development in place that can address all issues in balance; PNG can become the leader of tuna business in the world.
President of the PNG Fishing Industry Association Pete Celso said PNG can also look at opportunities in expanding tuna market in the world to other countries like the US, other parts of Asia, India, Australia, Middle East and others.
The annual average catch of tuna worldwide is about 4,300,000 metric tons while PNG’s average annual tuna catch was about 500,000 metric tons. The latest catch of tuna in PNG for 2010 was 720,000 metric tons, which is about 17% of the world’s tuna catch.
He said biggest importers or consumers of tuna are in the European Union markets like United Kingdom, Germany and others. Other biggest tuna consumers in the world are United State, Middle East and Asia.
Celso said PNG could gain maximum financial benefits for the country if PNG could process all its catch on-shore.
This will then provide significant socio-economic opportunities for PNG in terms of revenue and job creation. This would also generate foreign exchange for PNG that can preserve and maintain the stability of the Kina currency.
Celso said this could add more value to the industry and PNG could potentially become a food basket of the Pacific and possibly the whole Asia Pacific region through its tuna resources.
