The important point to emphasize before considering the overall conclusions and recommendations is that these studies represent the first stage in the project cycle, i.e., project identification. The important part of project identification is that the project must meet a prima facie test of feasibility both financial and economic.
The projects investigated in the study have many similarities, not least that they are all related to small pelagic species and have all received the attention, effort and resources of the FAO/DANIDA programme. However, the projects are all at different stages, and in much of the detail, there are many differences.
One of the roles of project identification is to screen or modify project ideas. One of the factors that affects projects is excessive risks and solutions must be sought to reduce this aspect of investment. In the cases for Indonesia, India and Morocco, there is a need for vessel studies to produce or modify purse seiners for CSW held storage. Such studies would reduce risk and complement and assist investment programmes within these fisheries. Some attention to marketing is also required and is included in the appropriate country recommendations.
The study for Thailand is somewhat different. Although the current vessels do not have CSW storage, they approximate to it more closely than the purse seiners of the other countries. However, the location of their fish resources are more distant and voyages are of considerable length giving little gain with CSW storage.
There is additional risk through the doubtful market acceptance and more work is required in this area before an investment project for Thailand could be recommended.
The final conclusion of overall significance is that this kind of quantitative approach is now more readily available to a growing number of countries through the access of micro-computers and it can also be seen that a methodology and techniques are available. Data bases need to be improved to match the demands of these analyses but they are undoubtedly of great value for the detailed investigation of projects throughout the project cycle. The approach can obviously be extended well beyond the examples in this report and are appropriate, not only for other countries but also, for different fisheries.
