A report into the economic contribution of commercial fishing to New Zealand has shown processing alone is worth $194 million to the Bay of Plenty region.

This is in addition to the value to the Bay of Plenty region of commercial fishing itself.

Nationally, the seafood industry has a total value of $4.18 billion.

Chief Executive of Fisheries Inshore New Zealand, Dr Jeremy Helson, says the report confirms the importance of commercial fishing to New Zealand.

'The Ministry for Primary Industries says exports alone are expected to reach $2.3 billion by 2025.

'Add the contribution to the domestic market through jobs, investment in infrastructure and the sectors supporting the industry and you have a significant contributor to the New Zealand economy.”

The report, which measured a five year average, showed 13,468 people were directly employed in fishing and seafood processing alone, which is 0.7 per cent of all New Zealand employment.

Seafood is New Zealand's fifth largest export commodity by value and represents 3.2 percent of total exports.

The report includes fishing and seafood harvesting but excludes aquaculture, which has revenues of another $500 million.

'In the inshore fishery, snapper is the top commercial catch, and rock lobster and paua the highest value shellfish species,” says Jeremy.

The largest deep water commercial catch was of hoki and this species alone accounts for 38 percent of the deep water fisheries value.

The seafood processing industry (excluding aquaculture) is a significant contributor to the New Zealand economy and employed 9356 FTEs.

Of those, 550 were employed in processing in Bay of Plenty and many more were employed on vessels catching seafood.

'It is about jobs – and particularly jobs in regional New Zealand. The better the industry does, the better off fishing communities are around the country.”

The report was derived from catch data supplied by the Ministry for Primary Industries.

The report; The economic contribution of commercial fishing to the New Zealand economy is available here

And a summary of the report is available here