7. It was agreed that the Meeting should address the technical and scientific issues pertaining to the future management of deeper water fishery resources of the southern Indian Ocean in the area that had been identified as the basis for a future possible regional fisheries commission. While it was noted that no commission, convention, or other means existed by which fishery management decisions or actions could, at the present, be undertaken, it was agreed that the basis for the meeting was the common view that when such an fisheries management body was formed, it would need a factual basis on which to make management decisions. It was to satisfy this requirement that would be the goal of the Ad Hoc Technical Meeting. As such, the meeting recognized that any conclusions it reached would not create any formal obligation for action on the part of any state or enterprise. However, participants were unanimous in agreeing that future effective fisheries management in the proposed commission area would require co-operation and goodwill in the provision of fisheries data, respect for the requirements of confidentiality for such information and co-operation in its analysis and reporting of the results.
8. It was agreed that the following reports should be produced by FAO: i. a meeting summary ii. a full meeting report, hopefully to be published in the FAO Fisheries Report Series, if possible to be available for the September Meeting in Madagascar that is to be convened to discuss the proposed Commission agreement; it would also be distributed to relevant governments and organizations and iii. various technical guidelines would be prepared for distribution as noted in the subsequent discussion of the respective agenda items.
