Topics discussed were: changes in the membership of CWP; review of recommendations from CWP-18; reports of intersessional meetings; the Meeting of Agencies Participating in the Fisheries Global Information System/Fishery Resource Monitoring System (9 July 2001); reports on intersessional developments in agency programmes in fishery statistics...

Three major topics were considered. The first concerned the future role of the CWP following its reconstitution and the adoption of new statutes and rules of procedure. The second major topic concerned international initiatives of relevance to the CWP. The third major topic concerned the improvement of the reliability of fishery statistics, including consideration of the consequences and extent of the problem of non-reporting and mis-reporting. Other topics considered included a review of recommendations from the Fifteenth Session of CWP; modifications to programmes in relation to fishery statistics; exchange of national fishery statistics on electronic media; modifications to STATLANT questionnaires; discrepencies among agency databases; bycatch and discard data; recreational and subsistence fishery statistics; fleet statistics; aquaculture statistics; conversion factors; country and nationality issues, and economic statistics.