NGO worried over possible entry of Japanese investors in fisheries

Non-governmental organization Tambuyog Development Center has expressed concern about Japanese investments in the fisheries sector, fearing possible abuses based on liberal terms provided in the Japan-Philippines Economic Partnership Agreement (JPEPA). 

Tambuyog executive director Arsenio Tanchuling pointed out that while there is no fishery access agreement between Japan and the Philippines, Japanese commercial fishing may be allowed under JPEPA terms because its definition of "area" (Article 2), where investments and services may be undertaken, includes the territorial waters of the country and its exclusive economic zone.

Tambuyog pointed out that even without JPEPA, foreign investment is already allowed in commercial deep-sea fishing under the Philippine Foreign Investments Act of 1991, provided that foreign participation does not exceed 40 percent. 

As in previous years, the fisheries sector is again listed in the 2007 list of investment priorities of the Philippine government. Alongside shrimp and other aquaculture products, tuna — a product of commercial fishing — tops the list of priority products for exports.

Tambuyog notes that because of the fisheries sector’s inclusion in the IPP, it serves as an incentive that, coupled with JPEPA, could lead to increasing commercial fishing activities in the coming years.

Such a development, Tambuyog warned, would have an adverse impact on the sustainability of local marine resources that, according to experts, have reached their maximum sustainable yield back in the 1990s and are now increasingly over-fished.

The threat of eventual collapse of local fisheries is serious given the persistence of an open-access regime in the country, Tambuyog argued.  

Tambuyog said Japan has been a leading export destination of local shrimp products since the late 1980s.

Unfortunately, the NGO said, the socio-environmental costs of intensive shrimp farming in the country have not been properly addressed up to the present.

The JPEPA says nothing about addressing such costs, Tambuyog pointed out.

Thus, Tambuyog said, it would be interesting to see if the JPEPA would spur Japanese investments in local shrimp farming (and in other aquaculture products), thus helping the local shrimp industry to revive after almost 10 years of low productivity and diseases.

The downside would be the threat that the massive socio-environmental costs in the 1980s and 1990s would be repeated, the group added.