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Depleted fish stocks challenge future of Asia seafood industry
THAILAND - Food safety and the depletion of fish stocks will remain key challenges for Asian seafood producers, according to Rabobank International.Patric Vizzone, regional head for Asia food and agribusiness at Rabobank International, said the decline in wild fish populations in East Asia was a global concern.
East Asia accounts for 45 per cent or 41.7 million tonnes of the global wild catch and nearly 90 per cetn or 42.8 million tonnes of global aquaculture.
East Asia, which includes China, Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Indonesia, also accounts for 55 per cent of global seafood production, and leads other regions in terms of annual growth at 5 per cent for both wild catch and aquaculture.
"There is a growing regional consensus on the need for co-ordination and streamlined action to preserve this valuable and precious resource as the world's marine environment is now degraded resulting from several factors including over-fishing, sea-bed trawling, increasing upstream trash fish catches," Mr Vizzone said.
Source: BangkokPost
