Economic indicators for the Northern Prawn Fishery

ABARES has undertaken economic surveys of key Commonwealth fisheries since the early 1990s. Financial profit and loss statements as well as detailed capital inventories have been collected in these surveys to provide a large database of primary information. The information contained in this database can be used to construct a range of economic indicators to assist Commonwealth fishery managers meet their economic objective of maximising economic returns to the Australian community from the harvest of Commonwealth fishery resources. ABARES survey data analysis has enabled financial performance (the financial position of the average boat operating in the fishery), and economic performance (net economic returns achieved in the fishery as a whole) for the Commonwealth’s key fisheries to be reported in its annual Australian fisheries surveys report. More recently productivity and profitability indexes, entitlement values and cost of management have been added to this tool kit. This paper shows how fishery surveys data have been used by ABARES to construct a range of indicators, that when taken together help managers to assess their performance against their economic objective. Results from analysis of the Commonwealth Northern Prawn Fishery are used in this paper to illustrate the use of these indicators