Participants gave their estimates of current national production of market-sized fish and their expectations for growth in the sector. This information is summarised in Tables 3 and 4. Details of the information presented verbally at the workshop are given in Annex 1.
Partial or complete estimates of current and projected aquaculture production were obtained for 11 countries - Cyprus, Egypt, France, Greece, Italy, Morocco, Portugal, Spain, Tunisia, Turkey and Yugoslavia. It is emphasized that the data given in Tables 3 and 4 are the combined estimates of those participating and are not intended to stand as official statistics.
Amongst the countries represented, only Egypt, Italy and Tunisia expected to increase the production of mullets substantially through extensive aquaculture in the next five years. Aquaculture production of mullets in the region may rise by 85% from about 11 000 in 1985 to about 20 400 t in 1992, mainly because of a forecast rise of 7 000 t per year in Italian production. Egyptian production was expected to double and Tunisian production to quadruple.
Eel production was expected to grow by nearly 4 000 t per year to about 10 700 t per year between 1985 and 1992, representing an increase of about 58%.
A substantial increase in the production of sea bream and sea bass was forecast. Current production in the countries represented at the workshop was about 6 000 t per year. This is expected to increase to over 27 000 t per year by 1992, 4.5 times the level in 1985/6. Workshop participants therefore expected that more than 21 000 t per year extra sea bass/sea bream will be produced annually by 1992, compared with the current situation. Estimates (Table 5) of current total production (fisheries and aquaculture) of these species were incomplete, but a rough calculation based on the figures provided indicated that, assuming fisheries production stagnates, aquaculture may nearly double the current availability of sea bass and sea bream from the region within six years. One participant felt that these estimates were conservative. The marketing implications of this are discussed in section 4 of this report.
