"I have asked the FAO to participate in controlling or informing about illegal fishing activities in the country concerned," Indonesia`s minister of fisheries and marine resources Sharif Cicip Sutardjo said in a statement received here on Wednesday.
He said the cooperation between his ministry and the FAO is mainly aimed at informing recipient countries with regard to illegal fish to minimize illegal fishing activities and in connection with that imported fish must be accompanied with certificate of origin.
He said a code of conduct would possibly also be made to create understanding on the issue.
"But whether sanction would be given individual recipient or recipient countries it still has yet to be discussed," he said.
He said his ministry would never stop in the fight against the crime in the sea.
Based on the ministry`s data the ministry has seized as many as 4,326 fishing boats in 2012, 112 of them believed to have violated the law and 70 of them foreign are fishing boats and 42 others local fishing boats.
In the past eight years the ministry had examined 20,064 fishing boats and the cases of 714 of them had been brought to court.
The number of local boats believed to have conducted illegal fishing reached 563.
"The success of the operation is proof that illegal fishing activities by foreign boats in the Indonesian waters still continue," he said.
reporting by muhammad razi rahman
(H-YH/O001)
Editor: Jafar M Sidik
Copyright © ANTARA 2013
