AQD presents its programs at the 35th PCM

Over 50 participants gathered in ChiangMai, Thailand from 26 to 30 November for the 35th Meeting of the Program Committee (PCM) of SEAFDEC and the 15th Meeting of the Fisheries Consultative Group/ASEAN-SEAFDEC Strategic Partnership (FCG-ASSP).

PCM is where the technical aspects of the programs are discussed before endorsement to and final approval of the SEAFDEC Council, the policy-making body of SEAFDEC.

After noting AQD’s presentations of its 2012 achievements and 2013 plans (also done in the September in-house strategic planning workshop and in October at the meeting of the Philippine Technical & Administrative Committee for AQD), the PCM gave the following suggestions for AQD:

1. explore the conduct of a resource enhancement project in the Andaman Sea and the inclusion of other aquatic species such as lobster in the regional project on resource enhancement;
2. compile and share the information related to disease monitoring and surveillance undertaken by or in member countries; continue assistance in disease surveillance; conduct a training on control and prevention of epizootic ulcerative syndrome (EUS) for freshwater and marine fishes, viral nervous necrosis (VNN) for marine fish, and other marine shrimp-listed diseases such as early mortality syndrome (EMS);
3. consider seabass, giant freshwater prawn and white shrimps as additional priority species for the study on the withdrawal period of antibiotics

Lengthy discussions also ensued on SEAFDEC’s cooperation activities, particularly the draft Guidelines for the establishment of SEAFDEC Collaborating Centers.

Concerning the 15th FCG-ASSP, one important issue taken up was the need for SEAFDEC Departments and the Secretariat to come up with a list of expected outputs/results from various projects that are ready for dissemination and to make this list available for discussion at the meeting of the ASEAN Sectoral Working Group on Fisheries. Considering that many on-going projects will be completed in 2012, SEAFDEC Departments and Secretariat were also reminded on (i) the importance of evaluation or assessment to ensure that targeted project objectives are met and (ii) the need to synthesize, package, and disseminate the results of such projects to the Member Countries.

The PCM and FCG participants comprised delegates from SEAFDEC, its 11 member countries and from regional organizations and missions.