The Korea Deep-sea Fisheries Association, securing a long-term tuna-hauling right in the Pacific, has agreed on Korea’s tuna fishing terms with the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) for five years at the same conditions as the one-year pact that expires next month.
The agreement was made in fisheries negotiations between the association’s managing director Park Moo-seong and chairman Lorin Robert of the Micronesian Fisheries Authority at American Guam on Oct. 21-22.
Under the pact valid from Nov. 18, 2005 through Nov. 17, 2010, a Korean tuna purse-seining vessel is to pay $80,000 per year for operating in the Pacific sea and the number of ships allowed to fish is 27 with a possibility opened for an additional one vessel added to the total under the Palau Agreement.
Fees for both registration per fishing vessel and fishing monitoring per vessel were set at $300 and $1,000, respectively, and report on the entry into and departure from both the port and fisheries theater required by ships is 72 hours in advance.
Last year, 27 Korean ships harvested 24,636 tons of tuna off the waters of the FSM.