SAMUT SAKHON, June 30 (TNA) – As a large amount of fishermen plan to stop fishing from Wednesday in protest against the stiffer rule by the government on unlicensed fishing trawlers, vendors have started buying and hoarding seafood in anticipation that its prices would increase.
The general atmosphere at Talae Thai Market in Samut Sakhon province, near Bangkok, which is the largest seafood market in Thailand has been active since early Tuesday after vendors in the province and elsewhere in the country rushed to buy seafood products at the market.
Expressing his concerns if fishing trawlers stopped catching marine products from tomorrow, Pongrerk Ruangchaisit, a major shopper at the market, said the operational costs of every related fishing industry will increase while consumers will have no alternative but to buy seafood at a more expensive prices.
Mr. Pongrerk said he personally wanted the government negotiated with the disgruntled fishermen.
In the southern resort of Songkhla, more than 100 trawlers anchored at the piers and plan to hold talks with representatives of the provincial fishery association in order to explore way to settle the problem.
Most of the medium and small-sized fishing trawlers do not have fishing licences. The government wants the owners to register their fishing boats, have legal fishing licences, install fishing gear matching equipment they registered with and install a vessel monitoring system on fishing boats as required by the new law. (TNA)
