capital from die Kibun Company and is involved in 

 fisheries processing, while tlie latter has capital from 

 Tohto Suisan and is also involved in fisheries 

 processing (appendix WW). 



United States: Although Japanese vessels no 

 longer fish in U.S. waters, Japanese companies still 

 have a wide range of investments in the U.S. fisheries 

 industry (appendix YY). The majority of tliese 

 investments is in the North Pacific Alaska 

 poUock/surimi, salmon, and crab fisheries. 



VIII. Aid to Developing Coastal Countries 



The Japanese Government provides fishery 

 materials and technical assistance to promote economic 

 development in, and maintain friendly relations with, 

 recipient countries." Overseas fisheries aid is provided 

 in tlie form of grants and loans (govenmiental), and 

 Overseas Fishery Cooperation Foundation (OFCF) 

 (non-profit organization) projects. 



A survey of OFCF projects in 1991 and 1992 

 indicates tlie vital role aid plays in securing access to 

 promising distant-water fishing grounds. During those 

 two years, the OFCF initiated projects in the following 

 countries: Micronesia, Mauritius, the Solomon Islands, 

 Kiribati, Mexico, the Marshall Islands, the Russian 

 Federation, Australia, Morocco, and Palau." 



IX. Outlook 



toward value-added operations and away from catch 

 operations should continue for the foreseeable future. 



A. Trawlers 



Tlie outlook is especially bleak for Japanese 

 distant- water trawlers. The fleet has shrunk 

 dramatically since 1990, and should continue to shrink 

 in the future. It would not be surprising if the North 

 Pacific and converted trawler fleets were phased out by 

 the year 2000, with a limited amount of continued 

 hokuten, southern, and shrimp trawling. This distant- 

 water trawling fishery is simply too unprofitable for 

 Japanese fishing companies to continue much longer. 

 The most probable scenario, which can already be 

 observed, is one where Japanese companies sell their 

 factory trawlers to foreign joint venture partners in 

 developing countries. Under this arrangement, 

 Japanese fishery companies offer technical expertise in 

 exchange for access to the final product which is 

 exported to Japan. 



B. Squid Jiggers 



Japanese squid jigger effort should continue to shift 

 from traditional grounds off New Zealand and the 

 Falkland Islands to new grounds off Argentina and 

 Peru. If exploratory jigging off Brazil and Ecuador is 

 successful, a good number of Japanese vessels will 

 probably flock to these new fisheries. The size of the 

 fleet should continue to slowly decrease as increased 

 access fees and operation costs make distant-water 

 jigging increasingly unprofitable. 



C. Driftnet Vessels 



With the exception of tuna longlining, the scale of 

 Japanese distant-water fishing operations has decreased 

 significantly in the past few years. Japan has received 

 no U.S. allocations since 1989; high-seas salmon 

 fishing was banned as of 1992; high-seas pelagic 

 driftnetting was terminated at the end of 1992; tlie 

 donut hole is closed to fishing. The day when all 

 Japanese distant-water fishing operations become 

 unprofitable may soon be at hand, if it is not here 

 already (appendix ZZ). Consequently, it may not be 

 an overstatement to suggest that someday there may be 

 no direct Japanese involvement in distant-water catch 

 operations, simply because it is no longer possible to 

 compete with less-developed Asian rivals which have 

 cheap and abundant labor. The inexorable trend 



In the wake of the U.N. moratorium on high-seas 

 pelagic driftnet fishing, there are few viable alternatives 

 for the vessels in tliis fleet. Exploratory squid jigging 

 on the high-seas of the north Pacific has thus far been 

 unsuccessful, and it is doubtful whether it would he 

 profitable for former driftnet vessels to move into other 

 distant-water tuna or squid jigging fisheries. The most 

 plausible scenario is that many driftnet vessel owners 

 will seek Goveriuuent compensation and sell their 

 vessels for scrap or export to developing countries. 



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