II. Government Promotion of Shipbuilding 



water fishing grounds, and reorganize die structure of 

 die distant-water fishery associations.^" 



There is no information available which indicates 

 that the ROK Goveninient is promoting the 

 construction of new fishing vessels. 



III. Current Status of Shipbuilding 



Construction of new distant-water fishing vessels 

 has been at a standstill in the ROK since 1989 and the 

 ROK Government is expected to suspend its financial 

 support for new vessel construction. Funds originally 

 earmarked for new vessel construction in 1992 

 (approximately $44 million) were used instead to 

 finance the renovation and upgrading of over 300 

 coastal and offshore ROK fishimz vessels."* 



IV. Government Regulation of Fleet Size 



In 1991, the ROK National Fisheries 

 Administration (NFA) amiounced new policies in 

 anticipation of full ROK fisheries trade liberalization in 

 1997. Between 1992 and 2001, the NFA plans to 

 reduce the total tomiage of the ROK coastal and 

 inshore fisheries fleet from the 1991 level of 

 963,000GRT to less dian 900,000 gross registered tons. 

 The reduction will focus on small fishing vessels using 

 small-niesh nets diat deplete vital fishery stocks. In 

 addition, the NFA announced plans to reduce fishing 

 fleets operating in the donut hole and in the 

 soudiwestern Atlantic squid fishing ground near the 

 Falkland Islands. The NFA will compensate affected 

 fishemien for lost revenue and will purchase their 

 vessels and gear. The NFA plans to use the purchased 

 vessels as artificial reefs to enliance stocks in coastal 

 waters. The NFA also established the Foreign 

 Fisheries Development Foundation to explore potential 

 new fishing grounds beyond the ROK 200-mile FEZ.-'' 



ROK Government and industry leaders met in April 

 1993 to discuss long-tenn strategies and pro-active 

 measures for the ROK distant-water fishing industry. 

 Industry leaders proposed that the Goveninient reduce 

 interest rates, improve licensing procedures for distant- 

 water fishing vessels, actively work to secure distant- 



V. Vessel Exports 



Compared to Japan, the ROK has exported only a 

 small number of fishing vessels (appendices L-T). 

 Significant exports of large ROK fishing vessels began 

 only in the late 1980s. Nations most closely associated 

 with flag-of-convenience registry (Panama, Honduras, 

 St. Vincent-Grenadines, Singapore) appear often in 

 these statistics. Japanese fishery industry sources 

 speculate that most flag-of-convenience fishing vessels 

 are aging Japanese-built tuna longliners registered in 

 flag-of-convenience countries by Korean and Taiwan 

 companies. Tliese vessels are believed to focus their 

 operations on catching and freezing tuna for the 

 Japanese sashimi market. ROK exports of fishing 

 vessels to the flag-of-convenience nations noted above 

 show that the ROK exported a total of 43 vessels with 

 an average capacity of 500GRT between 1986 and 1991 

 (appendix U). It should be noted that no ROK vessels 

 were exported to these 4 countries in 1992. It is not 

 clear why ROK exports of fishing vessels to these flag- 

 of-convenience nations have decreased, but the 

 Japanese tuna industry has been urging the ROK and 

 Taiwan tuna industries to discourage flag-of- 

 convenience registry since a glut of sashinii-grade tuna 

 supplied by flag-of-convenience longliners has 

 depressed the Japanese sashimi market. 



VI. Access to Foreign Fishing Grounds" 



With the temiination of access to the waters of 

 many countries, including the United States and 

 Canada, and increasing restrictions on distant-water 

 highseas fisheries, ROK fishemien have focused their 

 attention on the value-added fisheries processing sector 

 and gained access to foreign fisheries through joint 

 ventures, primarily with developing coastal countries. 

 ROK vessels have secured access to 200-mile zones in 

 Argentina, Peru, the Falkland Islands (United 

 Kingdom), Kiribati, the French Pacific Island 

 territories, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand, the 

 Philippines, Mexico. Suriname, Colombia, Sierra 

 Leone, Senegal, Angola, Guinea-Bissau. Saudi Arabia, 

 China, and Russia. 



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