Fishing Capacity and Economic Profile of Commercial Fishing Vessels in Kuantan, Pahang State, East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia

The marine capture fishery in Malaysia contributed significantly to the national economy and inshore fishery is the main contributor of the fish landings. The importance of marine fisheries is not only for the political and social also for the ecological aspect concerning with economy and well-being of the coastal communities. Moreover, the long-term sustainability of marine fisheries calls for the maintaining and important consideration upon it. Due to the complex system of marine and coastal area, the interaction among the fish population, economy and management policy are crucially need to evaluated. The main focus of the research is modelling fishing fleet dynamic and fishermen behavior. Therefore, the behavior of fishermen with respect to over-fishing and the impact of current management policy; and simulation the dynamics of fishing fleet using the proposed management policies with the aim of sustainable fishery management practices are the main expected outcomes by the research. Therefore, hypotheses could be stated in the study: H(1): The fishing effort by each vessel and overall fishing fleet, which directly changes with the profit of fishing vessel more fishing fleet will enter the industry with increasing profit. H(2): The proper combination of management policies will address the profit maximization and sustainable fishery management in the long run. Therefore, the research questions include: -How fishermen behave on short term and long term effort allocation and key fishermen behavior of entry and exit decisions to achieve the desired socioeconomic and biological objectives; and -How fishermen behave in line with the profit maximization and impact of management policies and what is the proper combination of fishery management policies with the aim of sustainable fisheries management. - The data presents the economic profile and performance capacity of commercial fishing vessels. These data are useful to predict the number of catches and provide information about value in economic analyses, to predict the performance and contribution of commercial fishery to the economic development. These data been collected from the trawl and purse seine fishers at the commercial fishing industry at East Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. The data could be used for the economic management of commercial fishing industry with different stakeholders including fisheries department and other institutions. - The data will be highly beneficial for the researcher who focus on the commercial fishing industry studies. - These data can be used for further insights to produce recommended policies in the fishing industries. - The data can be used to characterize the need of economic analysis precisely. It helps to identify the commercial fishing vessels cost and expenditure. - These data show the income of crew depends on the type of vessels and gear types and will explains the percentage and share that been split for the income.