PERTANIKA JOURNAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES

The optimal bioeconomic rate o f exploitation of the demersal fishery in northwest Peninsular Malaysia (NW PM ) is determined in this paper. A bioeconomic model for the fishery is developed and estimated. The results show that even though present rate o f exploitation of the demersal fishery shows slight improvement compared to the open access level, the demersal stock is overfished biologically and economically at this rate. An important result is that tremendous improvement for the demersal fishery in NW PM can be achieved if fishing effort is reduced by 60 to 78 percent from the present level. This implies an urgent need to formulate appropriate effort reduction m management policies in order to derive maximum benefits from the fishery.