Fishing industry blasts govt's neglect of its plight
The fishing industry, which is sinking under high oil prices, needs rescuing from the government in order to survive, according to the Thai Chamber of Commerce.
Somkiat Anurat, chairman of the chamber's fishing-indus-try committee, told a seminar last week that the Board of Trade of Thailand would press the Agriculture Ministry to take responsibility for finding a systematic solution to the fishing industry's woes. The fishing industry has suffered from negligence by the government since being hit by higher fuel costs, he said. According to an industry observer in Samut Songkhram's fishing association, more than 35 per cent of all trawlers are docked, and more of them will give up going to sea if the government does not lend a hand. Fishing is considered an im-portant industry, contributing Bt200 billion a year in export income. It produces 4.52 million tonnes a year, while supporting 61,000 trawlers, 2,000 processing plants and two million workers. Besides fuel costs, the industry faces an imbalance in the size of the fleet and marine resources. "The industry's competitiveness, therefore, is deteriorating," Somkiat said. With 368,000 square kilometres of territorial waters, the country has limited resources, he said. According to a study by Samut Sakhon's fishing-study centre, the appropriate number of fish-ing boats for the country is 25,000. "This means that there's an excess of 36,000 boats," he said. The government should find a way to get rid of the redundant ones, he said. If the government does not take this problem seriously, there will be a shortage of fresh fish to feed the factories, and boat-operators will also be adversely affected, he said. The fishing industry consumes 1.4 million litres of fuel oil a year, which means 400 million litres worth Bt5 billion a year is squandered by the superfluous boats, he said. The country would be better off if the government used that same amount of wasted money to convert the surplus boats to other uses such as agriculture or tourism. Small-scale fishermen stand ready to decommission their boats if they receive financial support from the government to go into other fishing-related businesses. Watcharapong Thongrung The Nation
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