Japan, China and six other economies of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission agreed Thursday to cut their combined saury catch quota by 40% to 333,750 tons per year, in order to address fishery resource depletion.
The new catch limit, which was decided during a three-day online meeting through Thursday, will be in place until the end of 2022. Tokyo had proposed a reduction of annual catch quotas as a way to prevent overfishing in the high seas by China and Taiwan.
The saury catch limit is currently set at 556,250 tons among the eight participating economies, with 330,000 tons allocated for the high seas and 226,250 tons for exclusive economic zones in Japanese and Russian waters.