Seaweed farming needs tighter regulation to limit damage to the environment after booming into a US$6.4 billion business with uses in everything from sushi to toothpaste, a UN study said yesterday.
The report said seaweed can sometimes cause harm and spread diseases and pests.
One Asian seaweed brought to Hawaii has smothered some coral reefs by out-competing local plants, the study said.
Photo: Reuters
“There’s very little regulation” in many nations, said Elizabeth Cottier-Cook, lead author of the UN University study.
“You can take a plant from the Philippines and plant it in east Africa,” said Cottier-Cook, who also works at the Scottish Association for Marine Science.
A damaging bacterial disease known as ice-ice, for instance, has spread with a red seaweed from the Philippines and infected new farms in nations such as Mozambique and Tanzania.
Cuts in production caused by ice-ice caused losses estimated at US$310 million in the Philippines alone from 2011 to 2013, according to the report.
Globally, about 27.3 million tonnes of farmed seaweed were produced in 2014, worth US$6.4 billion and up from almost nothing in 1970, the UN University said.
Seaweed is used in foods such as soup, sushi wraps and spaghetti, as fertilizers and as animal feed.
The US dollar was trading at NT$29.7 at 10am today on the Taipei Foreign Exchange, as the New Taiwan dollar gained NT$1.364 from the previous close last week. The NT dollar continued to rise today, after surging 3.07 percent on Friday. After opening at NT$30.91, the NT dollar gained more than NT$1 in just 15 minutes, briefly passing the NT$30 mark. Before the US Department of the Treasury's semi-annual currency report came out, expectations that the NT dollar would keep rising were already building. The NT dollar on Friday closed at NT$31.064, up by NT$0.953 — a 3.07 percent single-day gain. Today,
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar
The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday met with some of the nation’s largest insurance companies as a skyrocketing New Taiwan dollar piles pressure on their hundreds of billions of dollars in US bond investments. The commission has asked some life insurance firms, among the biggest Asian holders of US debt, to discuss how the rapidly strengthening NT dollar has impacted their operations, people familiar with the matter said. The meeting took place as the NT dollar jumped as much as 5 percent yesterday, its biggest intraday gain in more than three decades. The local currency surged as exporters rushed to
RSS