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Catch data is essential in building a robust fisheries management strategy. However, in some Regional Fisheries Management Organization (RFMO) e.g., Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC), such data needs to be tailored due to several reasons, for example, inter-annual variation in reported catches by species, gear and fleets. However, such method often creates a distinguishable discrepancy between national catch data presented in the country’s national report and those presented in the IOTC datasets. Since the yellowfin tuna stock in IOTC was under pressure in the last five years, catch reduction was an inevitable solution for guiding it back into recovery. Nevertheless, if the new re-estimated data were to be used as the basis for catch reductions this would not reflect the real situation bearing in mind that the Indonesia waters is the largest ocean area among IOTC members. However, Indonesia appreciates the effort taken by IOTC Secretariat to work with Indonesia on developing a new methodology based on the best data available on the robust e-logbook to produce data catch for the period of 2010-2020. Two-sessions assistance meeting (virtual and field visit) with the IOTC staffs were held consecutively between February and July to follow up the WPDCS17 recommendation. Both parties agreed that the current re-estimation methodology was somewhat confusing and based on obsolete study, thus an updated version with more recent and robust datasets is imminent. This report provided an in-depth study on how to conduct recalculation on the Indonesian tuna datasets with emphasizing on using a reliable data source and minimizing the uncertainties. In the wake that this approach will be approved as the foundation for estimating Indonesian catches for the 2010–2020 periods.
