ISLAMABAD, Jan 14: Livestock and Dairy Development Minister Mir Humayun Aziz Kurd told the National Assembly on Wednesday that no foreign trawler had been granted fishing licence since October 2005.

The minister, in a written reply to a question, said that at present no trawler was in operation in the Pakistani waters that came in the domain of the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), therefore there was no negative impact on fish breeding.

The EEZ in sea is up to 200 nautical miles which has been divided into three zones - territorial waters are considered from zero to 12 nautical miles, 12 to 20 nautical miles are considered as buffer zone, 20 to 35 nautical miles are considered as Zone-II, while Zone-III lies between 35 to 200 nautical miles.

Licences are issued by the federal government beyond 20 nautical miles up to 200 nautical miles.

The minister said that 11 small-scale fibreglass tuna long-lining boats (under 100 gross tonnage) Pak-Flag were issued licences in March last year but only five remained in operation from May to September last year.

He said revenue of $469,073 was earned in 2007-08 through the export of 280.43 tons of tuna fish caught by the five fibreglass boats.

Mr Kurd said that tuna long-lining allowed was friendly fishing gear which caught only tuna and tuna-like species of marketable size through hooks and bait which had no negative impact on the breeding of fish stocks.

He said that due to high licence fee, royalty and high fuel charges, few fishing vessels operated in Pakistani waters in 2007-08. Tuna which were highly migratory fish were harvested by neighbouring countries and “as such Pakistan could not benefit from these stocks”.

He said that work was in progress on the review of this policy to attract investment in this area through reforms.

He said the ministry had provided financial and technical assistance to private sector and improved the fish holds of four modular boats. As a follow-up, the Sindh government had started a programme of modifying 200 boats under the provincial Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) with 75 per cent share of the Sindh government and 25 per cent of the boat owners.

Balochistan will also follow this pattern, he said.