Nine countries and regions, including Japan, Russia and China, started annual talks of the North Pacific Fisheries Commission in the city of Osaka on Monday to discuss controls for saury fishing amid continuing poor catches.
Slated to run until Thursday, the talks will focus on setting calculation rules to allocate catch quotas.
Until now, quotas have been based on discussions among the participants, who are now considering setting fishery control rules on the basis of resource data from scientific organizations, similar to rules adopted for southern bluefin tuna.
In the previous session in March last year, countries agreed to reduce the saury catch quota in international waters to 150,000 tons in 2023 and 2024, down 25% from 2022. Including in surrounding waters, catches are set to be limited to below 250,000 tons.