39. Five presentations from the experts were delivered on topics of interest to the bluefin tuna sector.
40. The first presentation, by Mr Takayuki Matsumoto from Japan, covered tuna import statistics, pointing out that currently 80 percent of imports consist of farmed products. He also touched upon a number of issues affecting the accuracy of the statistics collected. Mr Peter Miyake complemented the presentation indicating that the Mediterranean is currently supplying 50 percent of the bluefin tuna imports.
41. Mr Gregorio De Metrio and his colleagues presented the results of tuna tagging programmes in the Mediterranean indicating that an excellent collaboration has been established between the research institutions involved and a number of commercial farms. Furthermore the Turkish BFT Farmers' Association invited the relevant scientific institutions to carry out the second pop-up tagging campaign in Eastern Mediterranean and donated 50 BFT specimens for this purpose. Mr Isik Oray from Istanbul University summarised the results of a first bluefin tuna larval survey conducted in the Eastern Mediterranean basin and announced that a second survey may be carried out in the near future. Mr Antonio García Gómez of the Spanish Institute of Oceanography gave a presentation on the progress of the EU-funded REPRODOTT Project.
42. The participants welcomed the efforts of the GFCM Secretariat to update the bluefin tuna capture fisheries, aquaculture and marketing summaries presented at the Second Meeting of the Working Group. It was agreed that the missing national survey from Libya and the updates from the other countries would be forwarded to Rome within two weeks following this Meeting. The GFCM Secretariat would compile for publication and distribution a report containing such summaries along with the guidelines of the Working Group and the reports of its three meetings.
43. The Chairperson informed the participants that the Guidelines prepared by the Working Group would be available before the Third Meeting of the ICCAT Working Group to Develop Integrated and Coordinated Atlantic Bluefin Tuna Management Strategies (Fukuoka, Japan, 20-23 April 2005).
