Fisheries is important to the economy and nutrition of the countries in the ASEAN Region (Figure 1). For this reason fisheries development holds high priority in the socio-economic development programmes of countries in this region resulting in the comparatively high levels of production from this sector. The annual fisheries production from the fisheries departments of the ASEAN countries per latest available statistics is as follows:
| Country | Production (mt) | Data year |
| Brunei | 3 140 | 1984 |
| Indonesia | 2 260 989 | 1984 |
| Malaysia | 740 443 | 1983 |
| Philippines | 2 134 846 | 1985 |
| Singapore | 22 702 | 1985 |
| Thailand | 2 134 838 | 1984 |
Based on production system, the two major components of the fisheries production sector are: (a) capture fisheries, and (b) aquaculture. Capture fisheries is mainly from marine sources with small percentage coming from natural inland waters. Aquaculture in the region is composed of (a) freshwater aquaculture (ponds, pens or cages), (b) brackishwater aquaculture (mainly ponds), and (c) mariculture or sea-farming. The relative magnitude of capture and culture fisheries in the different countries are shown in Table 2. It is shown that on the average over 90 percent come from capture fisheries in the region.
In this paper, freshwater and brackishwater aquaculture are classified as part of inland aquaculture being mainly land-based. Culture practices done in salty or marine waters from the coastline outward are treated as mariculture or seafarming.
Aquaculture production from different types of culture, for the different countries, is shown in Table 3. Here it can be seen that all the countries practice aquaculture but it has particularly attained consequential production in Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Thailand.
Mariculture or seafarming is practiced in all countries in the region (Table 4). In production the Philippines lead with about 202 076 mt coming from open water culture of molluscs and seaweeds. The production of over 30 000 from Thailand is mainly from open water culture of molluscs and netcage culture of finfish. Malaysia has a diversified production consisting of cage culture of finfish and open water culture of mollusc mainly the cockle; with an annual production total of about 40 000 mt. Inspite of limited production area Singapore produces about 1 200 mt per year while Brunei has started to demonstrate cage culture of finfish and open water culture of molluscs mainly the green mussel.
