Japan, South Korea, Taiwan to maintain current glass eel quotas

By Undercurrent News June 11, 2018

Japan, South Korea and Taiwan agreed in Tokyo on Friday to maintain the current quotas for glass eels and also to hold another meeting in September to examine the eel stock in Japan, the Japanese newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reports.

Japan put just 14 metric tons of glass eels into farming ponds this season, due to poor catches, according to the newspaper. That’s the second-lowest level on record since 2006. Adult eel prices were at JPY 5,300 ($48.23) per kilogram on Friday, about 1.5 times higher than a year before, according to the Union of Eel Farmers Cooperatives of Japan.

Under the new quota agreement, Japan is still permitted to capture as much as 21.7t.

Japan plans to ask China to participate in the forthcoming experts’ meeting, noting that it has the largest quota, 36t, and routinely does not participate in discussions with the other countries.