Fisheries Situation Report, January to March 2021

Fisheries

During the first quarter of 2021, the total volume of fisheries production was registered at 978.62 thousand metric tons. It decreasedby-0.8 percent from the 986.41 thousand metric tons produced during the same period in the previous year. Among the subsectors, commercial and marine municipal fisheries exhibited reductions while inland and aquaculture showed production increments.

Of the 20 major species, decrements in production were exhibited by 11 species and double-digitproduction declineswerenotedin fimbriated sardines (tunsoy, -37.5%), threadfin bream (bisugo, -18.7%), yellowfin tuna (tambakol/bariles, -17.6%), and grouper (lapu-lapu, -13.0%).

On the other hand, double-digit improvements were observed in mudcrab (alimango, 20.2%), skipjack (gulyasan, 19.0%), and slipmouth (sapsap, 15.8%).

Commercial

Commercial fisheries volume of production was estimated at 195.67thousand metric tons in the first quarter of 2021, which was -3.0 percent lower than itsprevious year’s record of 201.64 thousand metric tons. The subsector comprised20.0 percent of the total fisheries production.

Municipal

Note: Starting 1st Quarter of 2021, Municipal Fisheries will be divided into two subsectors which are marine municipal and inland municipal.

Marine Municipal

During the period, marine municipal fisheries subsector posted a reduction of -0.9 percent. The subsector came up with 220.31 thousand metric tons from itsoutput of 222.39 thousand metric tons during the same period in the previous year. It covered 22.5 percent of the total fisheries output.

Inland Municipal

The volume of production of inland fisheries was recorded at 37.31 thousand metric tons during the quarter. It increased by 0.5 percent compared with its37.13 thousand metric tons level during the first quarter of 2020. Of the total fisheries production, 3.8 percent was shared by inland fisheries.

Aquaculture

The volume of harvests from aquaculture farms reached 525.32 thousand metric tons. It went up by 0.02 percent from 525.24 thousand metric tons in the same quarter of the previous year.Ofall the fisheries subsector, aquaculture had the biggest share of 53.7 percent to the total output.