North Pacific fishery resources. The two 

 sides established a bilateral "Bering Sea 

 Fisheries Advisory Body" that has assessed 

 the status and trends of pollock resources, 

 including those involved in the unregulated 

 pollock fisheries by third parties in the 

 Central Bering Sea (the so-called "donut hole" 

 area). This action has fed into a continuing 

 political initiative to develop an appropriate 

 management regime for the donut hole. 



Large Soviet direct fishing activities in 

 the U.S. EEZ, which were curtailed by 

 President Carter in January 1980 (following 

 the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 

 December 1979), were not resumed in the 

 1980s. Soviet fishermen landed only 6,649 t 

 (against an allocation of 12,708 t) of Atlantic 

 mackerel in 1989. No direct allocations in 

 the Atlantic have been given to Soviet/Russian 

 fishermen since 1989. The Soviets had no 

 direct catch allocations in the Pacific after 

 1987. 



U.S. companies concluded, during the last 

 three decades, several joint fishery ventures 

 with Russian companies. 



Day-to-day bilateral fishery matters are 

 handled by a the Office of the Fisheries 

 Attache of the Russian Federation in 

 Washington, D.C. which is attached to the 

 Russian Embassy. 



Canada: Time constraints did not permit the 

 necessary research to describe the extensive 

 and traditionally good relations between the 

 former Soviet Union/Russian Federation and 

 Canada. 



Vn. OUTLOOK 



Russia is experiencing a transitional 

 period of economic and political development 

 which has heavily impacted the fishing 

 industry. 



Economic reforms which were stalled in 

 Russia have recently received a boost by 

 favorable political developments. In the 

 future, more privatization can be expected. 

 The government will discontinue supporting 

 unprofitable companies because of limited 

 budget funds. Planned output which used to 

 be the alpha and omega of the Soviet 

 economy (often without much regard for 

 consumers) will no longer be of any use. The 

 objective now is to cover operating costs to 

 survive and maximize profits in order to 

 modernize existing equipment and buy new 

 vessels, gear, processing plants, and other 

 materials. 



In the next few years, it is likely that 

 Russia will limit somewhat its far-flung, 

 world-wide operations. Access to fishery 

 resources of coastal countries will become 

 more and more problematic as these countries 

 develop their own fishing industries. Russian 

 fishermen have, in the last 10-15 years, lost 

 important fishing grounds off Canada and the 

 United States (which are now exploited almost 

 exclusively by native fishermen), off Namibia 

 (where the newly independent country 

 enforced a moratorium on foreign fishing), in 

 the international waters of the Bering Sea 

 (where overfishing led to an international 

 moratorium on the Alaska pollock fishery for 

 1993 and 1994), and elsewhere. 



In addition, the licensing fees, demanded 

 by coastal countries after the access is 



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