Global Challenges to Fisheries Trade: A Case of Thailand

Abstract

Over the past decades, world fisheries trade has been growing considerably both interms of quantity and quality. As with other agricultural products, trade in fish andfishery products is crucial for national economies in several developing countries as itrepresents a major source of foreign currency earnings for their national economies.The fishery industry thus plays an important role in income generation, employment andfood security.Thailand has been one of the largest exporters of fish and fish products in the world,despite the current problem of overfishing in the Gulf of Thailand. Given the marineliving resources in the Gulf have shown a steady declining trend, Thailand has faced anumber of serious challenges to its fisheries production and trade.The paper will first provide an overview of the current status of fisheries resources andgeneral trends in global production, utilisation and trade. Second, it will discuss thecurrent challenges to international fisheries trade, including the overfishing problem as aresult of inefficient fisheries management; international competition for access to fishstocks in EEZs and the highs seas; illegal, reported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing andfishing subsidies linked to overexploitation of fish stocks; fishing subsidies trademeasures linked to environmental protection arising from the WTO rules and otherconventions relating to biodiversity, global warming and climate change. Third, thepaper will look at current fisheries management in Thailand including it currentlegislative framework, policies and practice. Finally, the paper will argue that in orderto meet the challenges to its fisheries trade and increasing pressures of the world’smajor importers as highlighted in the Shrimp/Turtle case, Thailand needs to complywith international standards on conservation and sustainable development of fisheryresources both within and beyond its national waters, for instance, by undertaking amajor reform of its fisheries legislation and policies and by increasing cooperation withregional and international fisheries organisations.