Apec economies produce 70pc of world’s seafood

THE 21 Apec economies together are responsible for 70 per cent of the world seafood consumption and production, says a specialist.
Henk Brus, managing-director of global fishing company Pacifical, told the Apec Business Advisory Council food security summit in Port Moresby yesterday that about 71 per cent of the wild catch came out of the Pacific Ocean.
“Global fish consumption is growing faster actually than population,” he said.
“Today’s reality is that we have come to the point that our global wild fish marine catches reached a peak at 81 million metric tonnes and have started to decrease in the last two years.
“Of our wild stock, 33 per cent is fished at biologically unsustainable levels and rebuilding them will take time.
“Today we have 7,632,819,325 people on this planet: That was the latest count in July 2018.
“It is estimated that our duty is to fill 9.1 billion mouths by 2050.
“This poses a major challenge for every nation and also how countries cooperate within Apec to deal with food security.”
“Each of us is eating more fish.
“In capital terms, food fish consumption grew to 9kg in 1961 to 20.5 kg today at an average growth rate of 1.5 per cent per year.”