Pacific nations have warned foreign fishing countries, including the United States, to expect more price hikes to the cost of fishing in their territorial waters.

The nations that makeup the Parties to the Nauru Agreement have told disgruntled nations that they will raise the daily fishing rate from $US6,000 to $US8,000 per boat from next January.

It will raise their total income to around $370 million.

Sorry, this audio has expired Pacific fishing nations to receive more for their tuna

After a meeting in Marshall Islands, their fisheries ministers issued a strongly-worded communique warning the US industry that the $63 million a year it pays to fish in the Pacific isn't enough and there may be more price hikes to follow.

The next negotiating session with the US is in Auckland in July.

The US fleet has 40 flagged purse seiners which fish almost exclusively in the waters controlled by the eight PNA nations.

The eight nations that makeup the PNA control more than half the global supply of skipjack tuna.

Dr Transform Aqorau, PNA's chief executive officer, told Pacific Beat the communique focused on the continuing abuse of Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission measures by some fishing states.

"What we're seeing is that there is a lot of boats that are coming into the fishery and they're competing for days and therefore the price of days has just gone up because there are just not enough days available," he said.

"So those that are going to want to be able to fish in the region have to compete against each other to be able to stay in the fishery.

"Plus the fact that I think for this year Kiribati actually closed off the zone to some of the vessels that have fish-free days and so the result of that is that the price of tuna has gone up as a consequence of the actions that Kiribati took.

"Having said that, I should point out that even though the price of the days has gone up, relative to the value of the fisheries, it's still only around 10 per cent so you are not getting what I would regard as an equitable share of the value of the fishery - we're still not quite there yet."

Formula for funds in trust

Mr Aqorau says another key outcome from the Marshall Island meeting was the decision to distribute funds that have been held in trust for the past two years.

The nations agreed on a formula to divide up $94 million from the United States Treaty that has been held by the Forum Fisheries Agency.

"Finally, PNA ministers made an agreement that would have enormous implications for the Treaty and that was the internal distribution plus the minimum benchmark," he said.

"What they've said is a message that they're not going to agree to an arrangement that pays less than the minimum benchmark."

The PNA nations are the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and Tuvalu.