Fisheries subsidies negotiation at mc11 of wto 1

December 10, 2017 https://dailyasianage.com/news/98629/fisheries-subsidies-negotiation-at-mc11-of-wto

Fisheries subsidies negotiation at MC11 of WTO M S Siddiqui

The oceans are the world's largest source of protein, with more than 2.6 billion people depending on the oceans as their primary source of protein. A large proportion of the global population lives near the coast. Around 50 percent of the citizens in small islands and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), including Bangladesh, use to take in animal protein from fish. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in a recent study, indicates that 56.6 million people were engaged in the primary sector of fisheries and aquaculture in 2014 with the largest group in Asia.

The world's fisheries resources continue to decline and are in certain cases at risk of collapse, with nearly 30 percent of global stocks classified as being overfished by the FAO in 2014.

Overexploitation of fishing resources around the world includes the following yield losses: North America (23 percent), Europe (19 percent), Africa (19 percent), Asia (14 percent), Oceania (13 percent), High Seas (11 percent), and South America (7 percent). The fish resources are in gradual decline. About seventy-five percent of global marine fisheries are currently either overexploited, fully

exploited, significantly depleted or recovering from overexploitation (FAO, 2002).

In contrast, Bangladesh presently stands fourth in producing sweet water fish, according to this year's report of the FAO. According to FAO, Bangladesh has been among the top five fish cultivation countries for many years. According to study of CPD a few years back, 710 kilometer long coastline, Accounts for 20 percent of total fish production and 5 percent trawl fishing, 95 percent artisanal fishing.

But entrepreneurs and farmers have achieved the success almost without cooperation or agricultural loan from government. In the 2013-14 fiscal, entrepreneurs and fish farmers received only 10 percent of the 140 billion taka allocated as agricultural loans. There are government storehouses for rice and jute, but no proper permanent cold storage facilities for the fish farmers. Even so, FAO sees Bangladesh as one of the countries that hold the most potential.

However, the sector does enjoy general incentives applied to the export sector as a whole, which include duty-free imports of capital machinery and raw materials, fiscal incentives for export, income tax-rebates, fast customs clearance and subsidized credit.

In addition to food benefits, marine fisheries and related industries are estimated to generate $3 trillion in revenue per year or about 5 percent of global gross domestic product (GDP). These benefits for nutrition and job opportunities have financial costs that can reportedly lead to long-term environmental damage. It has been widely recognized that this troubling state of affairs has serious environmental, economic, and social consequences, especially in developing countries.

There is a broad consensus emerged that government subsidies to the fisheries sector make a significant contribution to this unprecedented crisis. The whole world agreed that the perverse subsidies are one of responsible factor for unsustainable fishing through perverse subsidies.

Global leaderships were very concerned of the situation. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea concluded in 1982, the states decided to maintain the extraction standard of "maximum sustainable yield" to be qualified by conservation and management measures that support "populations of harvested species at levels which can produce the maximum sustainable yield, as qualified by relevant environmental and economic factors." The convention was not directly referred to fish conservation.

WTO identified the subsidies to fisheries is responsible for the situation and back in 2001, when Ministers agreed in the Doha Ministerial Declaration to "clarify and improve WTO rules that apply to fisheries subsidies". In 2005, the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration included, in provision 9 of its Annex D, language recognizing the "broad agreement that the Group should strengthen disciplines on subsidies in the fisheries sector, including through the prohibition of certain forms of fisheries subsidies that contribute to overcapacity and over-fishing".

It also stated that the "appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing and LDCs should be an integral part of the fisheries subsidies negotiations, taking into account the importance of this sector to development priorities, poverty reduction, and livelihood and food security concerns". The declaration put emphasis to intensify and accelerate the negotiating process in all areas of its mandate and complete the process as soon as possible.

Estimates indicate that of the $35 billion in global fishing subsidies, capacity-enhancing subsidies constitute over $20 billion, representing 25 percent of the landed value of global marine catch.

According to the World Bank and FAO, the reported global fleet has more than doubled in size over the past four decades. (To be continued)

The writer is a legal economist. Email: mssiddiqui2035@gmail.com