Majuro is world’s tuna hub
MAJURO — The Marshall Islands capital atoll of Majuro is the world’s busiest tuna transshipment port, a fisheries-related workshop was told this week in the city, reports Marianas Variety.
As much as 600,000 metric tons of tuna is now being off-loaded from purse seine fishing boats to carrier vessels a year, Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) commercial manager Maurice Brownjohn told a tuna canning training meeting in Majuro earlier this week.
About 1.7 million tons of skipjack tuna is caught in PNA waters annually, accounting for 50% of the world’s supply of this type of tuna, which is used mainly for canning.
Port Majuro has seen exponential growth of the transshipment industry, with 10-15 carrier vessels in the lagoon throughout the year waiting for purse seiners to off-load their catches, and then return to nearby fishing grounds.
The fisheries department’s 2015 report to parliament issued late last month said the number of tuna transshipments increased by over 40% in 2015 compared to 2014, going from 495 to 704. These 704 transshipments involved 444,393t of tuna in 2015.