SEAFDEC Southeast Asian Fisheries Development Center
The SEAFDEC Secretariat organized the “Third Regional Technical Consultation on Fishery Statistics and Information in Southeast Asia” on 22–24 August 2023 in Chiang Mai, Thailand. The Consultation was attended by representatives from all ASEAN Member States (AMSs), representative from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and officers of the SEAFDEC Secretariat and Training Department. The Consultation was opened and chaired by the SEAFDEC Deputy Secretary-General, Dr. Tomoko Nakazato. This Consultation is the third of the series of consultations intended to finalize the draft revision of the Regional Framework for Fishery Statistics of Southeast Asia as well as the Questionnaires.
During the Consultation, the AMSs made presentations on their respective countries’ fishery statistics and tested the submission of statistics based on the draft revised Regional Framework and Questionnaires. Subsequently, the Consultation discussed and agreed on the final draft of the Regional Framework, Questionnaires, and streamlined process for submission of fishery statistics Questionnaires to SEAFDEC and FAO. The final draft of the revised Regional Framework will be further submitted to the 56th Meeting of SEAFDEC Council for approval, and subsequently to the 32nd Meeting of the ASWGFi for notation.
Moreover, recommendations were also provided during the Consultation for the improvement of the existing fishery statistics database as well as the database for the new Regional Framework. the Consultation also noted the request made by the FAO/FIRMS-Global Tuna Atlas (GTA) for SEAFDEC to consider sharing data from regional statistics on tuna and other species to FIRMS-GTA which would be useful in fulfilling the gap in data and information in the FIRMS-GTA Database and will also support the global scale monitoring of fisheries targeting tunas and tuna-like species.
