Coastal Plains Regional Commission

by Claud Anderson

As Federal Cochairman of the Coastal Plains Regional Commission, I am pleased to have this opportunity to tell the members of the Southeastern Fisheries Association about the Commission’s activities on behalf of the seafood industry in the past year.

As most of you know, the Commission is a partnership--a partnership between the Federal Government and the States of Virginia, North and South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. But the Commission is also another kind of partnership--a partnership between the government and private industry working to bring economic benefits to the people of the Southeast.

Nowhere is the success of this governmental-industrial partnership more evident than in the Commission’s work with and for the seafood industry. Over the years, we have been involved in a number of fisheries programs. Our two most outstanding thrusts have been the creation of new markets--both foreign and domestic--for underutilized Southeastern seafood and the building of a network of seafood industrial parks.

In March, I led a seafood trade mission (jointly sponsored by the Commission, the Gulf and South Atlantic Fisheries Development Foundation and the National Marine Fisheries Service to Venezuela. There we found a rising demand for seafood coupled with a lack of growth in domestic production that makes Venezuela an ideal market for our seafood.

Southeastern seafood was taken to Europe last September through a CPRC-sponsored exhibit at ANUGA, the world’s largest food trade fair. One hundred and ten different seafood products were offered for sale to the 135,000 food buyers who attended that fair.

Trade missions sponsored by the Commission and the Gulf and South Atlantic Fisheries Development Foundation to Nigeria and Egypt in 1978 and 1980 have resulted in opening those markets to Southeastern fishermen. In one year after the first mission, nearly 5 million pounds were sold to African markets and that figure will increase dramatically in the second year since the mechanical problems of exporting to Africa have been worked out.

And, finally, our efforts to open new domestic markets for underutilized fish have been so successful that the program has expanded to include 36 states.

While working to establish these new Markets, the Commission has not forgotten the equally important task of upgrading and adding to the shoreside facilities needed to handle increased demands. We continue to pursue our efforts to build a seafood industrial parks in each of the Commission’s States.

The park at Wanchese, North Carolina is closest to completion. The docks and bulkheading are in place, work has begun on the on-shore facilities, and more than 20 companies have expressed interest in locating in the park, scheduled to open in the mid-1981.

Newport News, Virginia has begun to negotiate and sign leases with businesses as part of the redevelopment of its existing city-owned harbor into a seafood park. That redevelopment will be completed by 1982.

Seafood parks in Port Royal, South Carolina, and Brunswick, Georgia are in earlier stages of development. Four sites on Florida’s Gulf Coast are under consideration and one or more will eventually become the home of a seafood park.

On behalf of the Commission’s members Governors, I would like to express to you the continuing commitment of the Coastal Plains Regional Commission to work with the seafood industry in providing growth opportunities for Southeastern Fisheries.