5 Mar 2012

Tonga moves to make more of tuna fishery

4:29 pm on 5 March 2012

The Tonga Government hopes to generate more income from tuna fishing licences.

It has just issued five licences to Chinese and Taiwanese vessels to join two other boats currently in Tongan waters.

In 2004 more than 30 vessels were licensed to fish Tongan waters but in 2011 just 100 metric tonnes of tuna was caught - a fraction of what just one vessel might normally catch.

Radio Tonga reports the fee for each vessel to fish in Tongan waters is nearly 20 thousand US dollars.