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EU Will Not Donate Old Deep Sea Tuna Seiners To Asiaff

28 January 2005 European Union

Spanish companies dedicated to vessel scrapping are glad to hear that the French-Spanish proposal to donate to Tsunami-hit Southern Asian fishermen with the used vessels that were going to be scrapped, only concerns artisan boats with a maximum length of 12 meters.

According to the Spanish ship scrapping company owner, Mr. Carlos San Claudio, “this would only concern vessels with a maximum length of twelve meters, which does not harm us as much as it would if it concerned levels of larger dimensions. We are pleased with the resolution”.

Mr. San Claudio’s and other company owner’s greatest fear was the possible transfer of deep-sea fishing vessels, such as large retired tuna purse seiners, to the coastal regions of the Indian Ocean. These large tuna vessels are not only non-suitable to operate in those waters, but provide the most work to the ship scrapping companies due to their characteristics. The industrialist maintains that the transfer of deep-sea fishing ships would only benefit the multinational fishing companies located in that area, who are already rejoicing the approval on the duty reduction for Asian canned tuna into the Communitarian market.