Tuesday, 1 June 2004, 10.15 a.m.
Presidents: Mr. Chung, Chairperson of the Governing Body of the International Labour Office, and Mr. Ray Guevara

...In the fishing sector, we will focus on developing a new instrument to replace seven existing ILO standards. International trade in fish products is worth US$55 billion, a third of which is exports from developing countries. The sector employs 25 million people, mainly on smaller vessels. It illustrates graphically one of the major issues of globalization because we need to find a way to ensure that the 90 per cent of workers in the small-scale and artisanal part of the industry can compete with those working on the big industrial fishing vessels; and that both can improve their working conditions...