ICCAT, the international body promoting the conservation of bluefin tuna in the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean began a three-day meeting Monday in Tokyo to decide on 2007-2010 catch quotas for its member economies.

The gathering of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas is a follow-up to its annual meeting in November in which the 43 member states and regions agreed to cut the catch quota of bluefin tuna in the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean for this year to 29,500 tons from 32,000 tons in 2006.

The participants in the November meeting also agreed to cut the allowable catch gradually to 25,500 tons in 2010, down about 20 percent from the 2006 level, in view of dwindling stocks due to overfishing.

The members of the Madrid-based intergovernmental body include Japan, the world’s biggest tuna consumer, the U.S. and the E.U.

The commission is expected to announce the result of the meeting Wednesday night.

In 2006, the EU had the largest quota, at 18,301 tons, followed by Morocco at 3,177 tons and Japan at 2,830 tons.

Last week, the commission and four other international tuna bodies held their first joint meeting in Kobe to seek joint efforts for tuna conservation.