There are numerous trade associations that represent and protect business owners in the fisheries sector, both assisting them in relations with institutions and local authorities and providing assistance and consultancy services in various areas, from bureaucratic procedures to organizing fairs and events.
Due to the peculiarities of the relative members, the self-employed or micro-enterprise professional associations have a certain affinity, at least from a formal point of view, with trade unions.
In a more extensive sense, organizations that represent interests that are not strictly economically productive (such as the organized exchange of goods and services) but that are on the fringes, for example, associations in the area of evaluation and promotion of certain products or natural assets may also be classified as trade associations.
Trade associations play a more active role in relation to micro- and small businesses in their territorial activities, given that large companies usually have their interests represented at national level.