Fisheries in the Economies of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories

In early 2001, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) expressed concern
that the importance of fisheries to Pacific Island economies was not
being fully appreciated by the countries of the region or by the donor
community. Discussions with Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), the
Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC), and the World Bank led to a
study to improve the accuracy of the estimates of the contribution of fisheries
to national economies. The output of that study was the publication The
Contribution of Fisheries to the Economies of Pacific Island Countries.
That report identified the official contribution of fishing to gross
domestic product (GDP), articulated a simple approach for estimating
fishing contribution to GDP, and reestimating fishing contribution to GDP
for each Pacific island country. It showed the major reasons for differences
between the official and reestimated contribution of fishing to GDP and
discussed the common difficulties found in estimating the contribution. It
also made estimates of quantities and values of production from the four
major components of fishing in the region: coastal commercial, coastal
subsistence, offshore locally based, and offshore foreign-based. Finally, it
provided summaries of the available data on fishery aspects of employment,
trade, government revenue, and nutrition.