cooperative management?

trade winds

Island fisheries: A case for cooperative management?

Joint management, or in ternational cooperation in management, of Paci fic fisheries resources has been receiving renewed atten tion lately, partly as a result of the talks held in Washington between Fiji’s prime minister, Sir Kamisese Mara and Amer ican officials, including Presi dent Reagan. Regional discus sions have been held by the Forum fisheries agencies on market development of this ma jor Pacific resource. ’’Fish swim freely in the sea, from one economic zone to another, so perhaps it makes sense to have them harvested, if not jointly, then perhaps under cooperative manage ment,” said South Pacific Trade Commissioner, Bill McCabe.

“This concept is not new but has been receiving a lot more attention lately, and hopefully we will be able to have cooperative promotion and marketing for fish products.”

This example of how fish could be handled cooperatively might now be taken up by other industries. Timber is one in dustry looking at the possibility of pooling marketing energies. ’’Clothing is another, perhaps less obvious, field where a similar approach might be taken, even though manu facturers pride themselves on each being individual in the style of their product,” said Mr Mcabe.

“We have been able to work in the last 18 months or so with manufacturers, not only from the same country, but from several countries, to promote clothing products jointly and in some ways that joint promotion

has helped each participant,” he said. ’’Manufacturers have found that they can benefit from the support of their com petitors. ’’Forum island manufacturers are individually small, but when combined can make a worth while supplier to a market in Australia, New Zealand or North America.”

A point offered in support of this concept is that the big markets, like Europe, the U.S. and Japan, as well as Australia and New Zealand, tend to look on the Pacific as one region of supply. It should be of advan tage, for the suppliers to act in

concert rather than in direct and possibly damaging competition.

Marketing is also extremely important and a number of seminars to upgrade this essen tial element of international trade are planned. One of these to be held at Madang and the other at Suva. They are de signed to cover the basic neces sities of exporting to the U.S., or any other market, but parti cularly the American one, and of other matters, such as finan cing sales and arranging distribution.

A similar seminar will be held by New Zealand at Apia, in Samoa, with the manager of a

major food manufacturer and an official from the Small Busi ness Agency attending.

The Solomons Islands gov ernment has organised its own business meeting and both the director of Australia’s Deve loping Country Liaison Unit and South Pacific Trade Com missioner McCabe will attend to talk to Solomons business people about marketing in Aus tralia, New Zealand and other countries. ”We would like to see many more chambers of commerce and governments organise that sort of promotion,” Mr McCabe said.

President Reagan ... new interest in fisheries following his talks with Ratu Mara.