Malaysia’s Agriculture Minister Datuk Dr Effendi Norwawi said skippers who mastered fishing technology could ensure volume of the tuna catch was increased.
The Fisheries Department plans to use 600 vessels to land 60,000 M/T to 75,000 M/T of mostly Yellowfin tuna from the year 2007, which will be worth around RM720 million (USD 190 Million) at today's prices. "To achieve this, we have to have the basics. We need our skippers so we can develop the industry without depending on others. If we have the vessels and do not have our own skippers we will not be able to move forward." Deep-sea fishing, for a start, is not in some faraway place. It is just close by. The Indian Ocean is rich in tuna.
"Success and failure of a fishing vessel operations are fully determined by the performance of skippers," he said. “Deep-sea and tuna fishing sectors were expected to contribute 430,000 metric tons and 75,000 metric tons, respectively, to the overall haul yearlyâ€.
"The potential from the development of the two sectors is huge," he said when launching the Nakhoda (captain) Development Program at Malaysia Fisheries Institute in Chendering this week.
“What we want is to make our skippers extremely efficient. We want them to know that being a skipper is a good profession. We want to modernize the fishermen and the industry," says Fisheries Department director general Datuk Hashim Ahmad. "People tend to think of fishermen as low-class and unglamorous, but with our trained skippers we can show that this is a good career." A skipper can earn RM 3,000 (USD 790) or more a month, and that does not include shares from a big catch. There are also skippers with successful companies who are drawing RM 10,000 (Usd 2,630) monthly, Hashim adds. The first batch of cadet skippers who came back from their tuna fishing stint in the Indian Ocean are brimming with confidence. These skippers, says Hashim, are eager to go back to sea. Some had even volunteered to join the tuna fishing vessels based in Penang to return to the Indian Ocean.
Local fishermen should learn from the experiences of their foreign counterparts to venture into deep waters. He said the vast waters covering the country's exclusive economic zone which was close to the Indian and West Pacific Oceans presented valuable grounds to be exploited by the deep-sea and tuna fishing sectors. "We should be brave to explore the Indian and Pacific Oceans to develop our own tuna fishing industry for export market," he said.
To achieve this end, he said, the traditional fishing method should be modernized by offering training to individuals under the skippers' development program. “Under the program systematic training would be provided to participants to master various fishing technology and acquire knowledgeâ€. Hashim said the target is to have 400 to 500 skippers by the end of 2005.
He said the program would produce a pool of skilled fishing crew who in turn would reduce the dependency on foreign work force, now numbered about 10,000.Currently all crewmen for the tuna fishing vessels which were based in Malaysia country were foreigners.
Fisheries director-general Datuk Hashim Ahmad said deep-sea fishermen only contributed an average haul of 140,000 metric tons a year against the potential volume of 430,000 metric tons, which could be exploited.
He said the development of the deep-sea industry for the last 15 years had been very slow despite various assistance from the Government.