(1) The Minister may, and shall on the advice of the Council, consult with foreign governments and in particular with governments of states sharing the same or interrelated fish stocks, with a view

(a) to ensuring the closest practicable harmonisation or co-operation of their respective fisheries management and development plans and regulations;

(b) to ensuring the harmonisation of systems for the collection of statistics, the carrying out of surveys and procedures for assessing the state of the fisheries resource in the region;

(c) to establishing on a bilateral, regional or sub-regional level reciprocal fishing rights with other states in the region, where the reciprocal fishing rights are necessary to sustain the growth of industrial and artisanal fishing;

(d) to providing for the formulation of sub-regional or regional fisheries management and development plans including monitoring, control and surveillance, for the allocation of fishing effort and catch for the formation or promotion of joint fishing, among states sharing the same stocks, and for taking sub-regional or regional joint conservation measures;

(e) to providing for the establishment and operation of joint sub-regional or regional fisheries management plans.

(2) Consultations under subsection (1) may be undertaken directly with the governments or persons concerned, or through existing appropriate regional or sub-regional organisations or international agencies.