KEY POINTS:
The NZ Seafood Industry Conference gets underway in Wellington this week as fishing companies struggle with the high kiwi dollar and ever-rising fuel costs.
The conference is being held at Te Papa from Wednesday to Friday and opens with a celebration of 50 years of the NZ Federation of Commercial Fishermen.
Seafood Industry Council chief executive Owen Symmans said presentations and discussions at the conference would include fisheries management, property rights, aquaculture, marketing and the economic outlook.
"From an economic point of view the industry is certainly struggling ... but these guys have been through these cycles before and they're certainly looking forward in terms of how they can maximise their future opportunities," Symmans said.
The markets for New Zealand seafood had been strong but the value of the dollar was eroding profitability with fuel costs providing a double whammy for some operators.
"We've got high inflationary pressures in New Zealand largely driven by Government expenditure," Symmans said.
"Certainly our high inflation pressures keeps the interest rates high and therefore attracting foreign capital flowing in here."
Fish stocks were generally in pretty good shape, he said.
"The first thing is that industry supports sustainability because if we haven't got sustainable fish stocks we haven't got a business," Symmans said.
"We're monitoring it very closely. We're just going through a whole lot of science working groups looking at the state of fish stocks as we lead into the sustainability round where the minister makes some decisions about the level of [total allowable catch] and [total allowable commercial catch]."
The minister made decisions about catch levels in April and October, with various stocks examined annually.
"I suppose the other big risks are around some of these environmental concerns, be they Maui's dolphins or [Marine Protected Areas] strategy in terms of implications on fishing."
The growth in the seafood sector would come from aquaculture with the wild catch declining and the demand for seafood still very high, Symmans said.
The Aquaculture Reform Act had been supposed to free up opportunities to provide more space for aquaculture through the [Resource Management Act].
"I think it's very clear that the legislation hasn't worked," he said. "It was ill conceived at the time and we told them so but at least there is some traction with Government recognising the problems that they've created rather than removed."
SEAFOOD INDUSTRY
* 315,601 tonnes exported in 2007 worth $1.3 billon.
* 130 species are commercially fished.
* 481,000 tonnes of total landed catch Oct 2006 - Sept 2007.
* 625,000 tonnes total harvest, including aquaculture.
* $233 million biggest export market, Australia.
* $175 million biggest export product, mussels.
[Source: Seafood Industry Council]
