The Fiji Fishing Industry Association says it has been requesting for a high level economic study to be conducted to determine the actual value of the tuna industry in Fiji and its true contribution to the GDP.
FFIA president and general manager of Solander Pacific Ltd Radhika Kumar raised the issue during a panel discussion on “identification of issues and opportunities in Fiji’s tuna industry” at the Fiji Tuna Symposium held at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Suva yesterday.
“It is to be noted that when determining the actual contribution of the sector to the national economy, we feel that it should include the whole supply chain locally including any Fiji-flagged sea and air freight platforms,” she said.
According to Ms Kumar the industry had continued to strive on its own despite the national bottlenecks that were prevalent in the recent years.
She also acknowledged that the human factor of the industry on fishing vessels had not been so robust as that of the assurance for the sustainability of the tuna stock.
She said the MSC was moving towards developing a social policy for its clients and was in the process of research and consultation of which the association had been part of since January last year.
Ms Kumar also highlighted the absence of specific national laws to deal with labour issues within the national fishing fleet.
“Even though there is a draft Maritime Labour Convention Regulation in place since 2017, of which the fishing industry was never consulted, we are not sure what its status is.”
Ms Kumar said to the understanding of the association the MLC Regulation was specifically for non-fishing vessels.
“Since there are no existing specific laws to address labour and social issues for the fishing sector, we ‘borrow’ provisions from existing laws like the Employment Relations Act and the Maritime Transport Act.”
