INDUSTRIAL FISHERIES DEVELOPMENT

THE start of the industrial tuna purse seining activity in Seychelles in the early 80s was to greatly improve the economic situation of the country and to transform the physical landscape of Port Victoria; Seychelles having been blessed with a unique situation in the middle of rich tuna fishing grounds. By mere virtue of its physical location Port Victoria has become the most important tuna fishing landing and transshipment port of the Indian Ocean and of the world. This article will briefly analyse whether Seychelles has obtained maximum benefits from its tuna resources and from its geographical position. It will also attempt to make some recommendations.
The tuna catch of the purse seiners licensed in Seychelles has risen steadily since 1984 reaching a peak of 403,366 tonnes in 2002. In 2006, the catch was 389,000 tonnes dropped sharply in 2007 although the official figures have yet to be published. Landings and transshipment have been high, reaching 371,987 tonnes or 95% of the total catch of these vessels. This surpasses by far other ports of the region used by these same tuna purse seiners. In 2006, 8,445 metric tones were transshipped in Diego Suarez while 5,282, and 3,998 metric tones where transshipped/landed in Mombasa and Port Louis respectively.
Despite these impressive figures, according to a recent study of the Indian Ocean Commission (IOC) countries carried out by the European Commission, the economic impact of the tuna fishery was the greatest in absolute financial terms in Mauritius followed by Seychelles and Madagascar. This included actual revenues derived from fishing agreements, licence fees, vessel expenditure and tuna processing. This is ironic despite the fact Seychelles has the highest tuna catch in its EEZ compared to that of the other IOC countries. It should also be pointed out that even though there are a dozen or so Seychelles-flagged tuna purse seiners, Seychelles has no real national tuna fleet and the number of Seychellois fishermen employed in the fleet is declining.
The tuna canning industry plays a very important role in the Seychelles’ economy. It ranks as the first or second largest tuna cannery in the world and canned tuna represents around 90% of Seychelles domestic product. This shows how extremely dependent we have become on only one company and it seems that this dependence will keep on increasing in the future with the proposed plans for expansion of the IOT operations.
There is an urgent need for diversification of the tuna production industry so that the country does not depend exclusively on one partner. Diversification means going into various tuna products such as tuna loins, tuna filets, and other high value-added tuna products. We are fortu-nate that some of the existing purse seiners firms operating here are also engaged in the production of high value-added products and have shown interest in investing.
For Seychelles to maintain its position as the most tuna port, it must invest in better infrastructure and become more competitive. Quay space is presently inadequate and very little new quay space has been built recently despite the increase in the number and size of vessels operating in Seychelles. It is often forgotten that fishing vessels operate differently from cargo vessels. It is also much more difficult to plan ahead as much depends on the prevalence of the catch and climate conditions. Several vessels can require quay space at the same time because of damaged nets resulting from bad weather conditions or from good catches. Vessels have in the past gone elsewhere because of the difficulty of finding quay space when required.
Other ancillary facilities are required such as ships repair facilities which does not necessarily have require very cost-ly dry docks. Improved basic facilities are need for certain types of repairs which do not require dry docking the vessel. Storage facilities are needed for the storage of salt, nets and heavy equipment, etc.
Facilities for long liners are even more inadequate despite the fact that Seychelles issues licenses to a large number of foreign long liners and it is also has a substantial number of foreign-owned but Seychelles’s registered and flagged industrial long liners. Mauritius benefits greatly from the foreign tuna long line fishing fleet using its port facilities for repairs, supplies, bunkering, entertaining of crew, etc. Furthermore, by catch and tuna purchased from the fleet is further processed thereby increasing the value addition of the resource.
Foreign tuna vessels owners would spend much more in Seychelles if more diversified and better services were pro-vided. We are not in need of more plants and promises as these rarely materialize. Ins-tead they contribute towards sapping investor confidence. The latest of these plans was the Seychelles Integrated Industrial Fisheries Develop-ment Plan launched with more publicity in 2006 but with little or no results to date.
We have often had the tendency of being extremely suspicious of foreign fishing operators so much so that since the beginning of the fishery we have seen little foreign direct investment in Seychelles from these operators. On the other hand, some of the same operators have been welcomed in Mauritius and have invested there. We should seize the opportunity being offered by the Fisheries Partnership Agreement with the EU and the recently negotiated Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the EU to not only ensure that Port Victoria remains the most important tuna port of the Indian Ocean but also that we establish a real partnership with all stakeholders in a win-win situation/ For this to happen, there must be a sincere, continuous and effective dialogue with the private sector so as to rebuild the trust and confidence.
(Contributed article – Courtesy: Seychelles Chamber of Commerce & Industry Newsletter)