“Soviet deal is On.."
pp. 17-18 · Read in the full issue
Kiribati is determined to develop its own fishing industry one way or the other, and it is the ways it may do it which have raised concern among friendly Pacific Rim nations.
Whilst at Rarotonga for the Sixteenth South Pacific Forum, president Tabai of Kiribati said the deal to license up to 16 Russian fishing boats would go ahead and at the time of going to press his minister of natural resources, Mr Babera Kirata, was on his way to Manila to negotiate the final details.
If all 16 Russians boats are licensed it will give Kiribati a revenue of about Auss2.4 mil lion a year. ’’America has expressed con cern, verbally,” said president Tabai.
The prime minister of Austra lia, Bob Hawke, has written to Tabai asking if Kiribati plans to allow the establishment of Rus sian bases. ’There are no plans for bases,” president Tabai told me.
Mr Hawke told him Australia was ready to assist Kiribati in developing its fishing industry and this would be a topic for further discussion, according to the president.
The Honiara-based Forum Fisheries Agency has been in volved in all Kiribati’s fisheries negotiations, acting as an advis er.
But Kiribati will not get rich through the Russian deal, says Tabai. The Russian money rep resents only a small portion of the country’s $16.2 million annual budget.
Kiribati plans to have four more pole and line boats of its own, financed through an aid package sponsored by the European Economic Commun ity at a cost of about Aussl million per boat.
He said the first two of these could be built in Fiji. (This suggestion is good news for regional industrial cooperation, and helpful, also, to the somewhat under-utilised Fiji ship-building and repair
establishment. Fiji recently turned down an Australian offer of ready-made patrol boats and said it would build them for itself- Ed.) ”We have a marine training school and plan to link it with the fisheries thing,” said presi dent Tabai.
Last month the Royal New Zealand Navy’s survey ship,
HMNZS Monowai completed a survey of Kiribati’s Line Islands and some islands in the north ern Cooks Group. That work will help Kiribati define the precise boundaries of its plan ned 200-mile exclusive econo mic zone.
Kiribati has already bought a
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refrigerated mother ship to handle its tuna catches and it is due for delivery in September.
While the Russian catches are likely to be unloaded and processed in South-East Asian ports, Kiribati plans to ship its catches to American Samoa where they will be processed at the Star Kist cannery.
That is about the only contact the Americans will have with Kiribati for there have been no further moves by the American Tuna Boat Association to negotiate licence fees for their boats. ATBA operators still re fuse to recognise e.e.z. bound aries applying to migratory fish and, to that extent, the fisheries situation in the Pacific remains in dispute, disarray and disor ganisation.
More than 140 U.S.-based ’’super-seiners” now operate across the Pacific. This, coupled with the increased number of patrol boats about to go into service under the flags of seve ral Pacific island countries, and the Tuna Boat Association’s adherence to their ”free-pur suit” policy on tuna, indicates a vigorous time in the fisheries area for some time to come.
From Roy Vaughan, in Raro tonga.