 26 high-seas vessels (160,408-GRT) from Russia 

 were reflagged in Panama, Cyprus, and other 

 countries in 1993. 



 6 vessels {18,945-GRT) from the Ukraine were 

 retlagged in Panama, Malta, Russia, and Estonia in 

 1993. 



 100+ vessels from Western Europe were retlagged 

 in many countries (see below) in 1993. 



 The countries used most frequently for registering 

 reflagged fishing vessels during 1990-93 include: 

 Cyprus, Honduras, Malta, and Panama. Belize, 

 Cayman Islands, Dominican Republic, and St. 

 Vincent play a lesser role. Information about Liberia 

 is not available. 



II. REGIONAL SUMMARIES 



A. AFRICA 



African fisheries range from artisanal fisheries 

 using small wooden canoes to modem high-seas 

 vessels equipped with the latest fisheries technology. 

 Fishing grounds also vary, from the rich grounds off 

 Mauritania to the relatively nutrient-poor waters in 

 the western Indian Ocean. The waters off Africa 

 have attracted foreign fishermen for many 

 generations, especially from former colonial powers. 

 Begimiing in the late 1950s and early 1960s, African 

 nations gained independence and began claiming 

 authority in their national waters from their former 

 colonial rulers. This process was accelerated in the 

 1970s as many nations around the world extended 

 their Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) to 200-miles. 

 Some former colonial powers recognized the changes 

 sweeping the continent and negotiated bilateral fishery 

 agreements in some of their former colonies. Some 

 fishermen, however, continued to fish illegally in 

 African waters, anticipating that most African 

 countries did not have the enforcement capability to 

 halt illegal fishing. Limited enforcement capabilities 

 remains an important problem in most developing 

 nations in Africa today. 



In 1977, The European Community (EC) began 

 negotiating international fishery agreements with 

 various African states. The first agreements simply 

 replaced existing bilateral agreements reached 

 between EC member states and their former colonies. 

 Agreements with Mauritania, Guinea (Bissau), 

 Guinea (Conakry), and Senegal were among the first 

 negotiated in West Africa. The most important 

 agreement was signed in 1988 between the EC and 

 Morocco allowing nearly 800 EC vessels access to 

 Morocco's territorial waters. The EC has gradually 

 increased the number of international fishery 

 agreements; in 1993, a total of 19 agreements, with 

 payments worth nearly $775 million, have been 

 signed with African and Indian Ocean countries. 



African states also negotiated bilateral fishery 

 agreements with Japan, Taiwan, and the Republic of 

 Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Asian fishermen were 

 especially attracted to tuna, billfish, cephalopods, and 

 whitefish found in the eastern and southern Atlantic 

 and Indian Oceans. Agreements were also reached 

 with Bulgarian, East Gennan, Polish, Romanian, and 

 Soviet fishery authorities (prior to the breakup of the 

 USSR in the 1991). 



African countries, by and large, have not become 

 centers for reflagging. Liberia, however, is a major 

 flag-of-convenience country for maritime vessels 

 throughout the world. The authors have no 

 information on the extent of reflagging under the 

 Liberian flag by fishing vessels. Today, many 

 reflagged fishing vessels are operating out of South 

 African and/or Namibian ports. 



B. ASIA 



There are four major Asian distant-water fishing 

 fleets: China, Japan, the Republic of Korea 

 (ROK), and Taiwan. With the exception of China, 

 these fleets have fished world-wide for over 30 years. 

 China's distant-water fleet emerged in the mid-1980s 

 and is likely to grow for the foreseeable future. 

 Other countries in the Asia-Pacific region possess 

 fishing vessels capable of distant-water fishing 

 operations, but these vessels operate primarily in 

 their own waters. 



Japan, the ROK, and Taiwan began large-scale 

 distant-water operations during the 1960s. These 

 fleets have formed an impressive global distant-water 



