Table 3. Poland. Shipyards building fishery 

 vessels and the number of 

 persons employed; 1993. 



Name 



Employnient* 



Type of Vessel 



Stocznia Gdanska 7.945 



Stoczma Gdynia 

 Stocznia Polnocna 

 Stocznia Ustka 

 Stoczma Wisla 

 Total 



6.689 



3,183 



788 



738 



19.343 



Stern trawlers 

 Motherships 

 Stern trawlers 

 Trawlers 

 Small trawlers 

 Small trawlers 



Source Budnownictwe Okretowe i Gospodarka 



Morska. September -October. 1993. 



* Employment given is for 1991. 



Director General of the Gdansk Shipyard 

 (Hans Szyc) had talics with German interests 

 in an effort to sell the vessel elsewhere, but it 

 is not known if these negotiations have been 

 successful. "'' 



The importation of fishing vessels from 

 abroad is nonexistent because of the 

 overcapitalization in the Baltic fisheries and 

 because the Polish shipyards could easily 

 satisfy the demand for high-seas vessels. Any 

 Polish company wishing to import fishing 

 vessels would have to pay a 5 percent import 

 duty and also scrap an old vessel before 

 purchasing another one. No fishing vessels 

 were imported in 1992 or 1993.-' 



D. Subsidies 



The fishing industry of Poland has, in 

 addition to supplying fishery proteins to the 

 domestic markets, also acted as an important 

 earner of hard foreign currency. Because of 

 this export function, the Polish state-owned 

 companies (which provided 88 percent of all 

 fishery landings) were heavily subsidized by 

 the Government from the general budget. ^^ 



programs supporting fishing vessel 

 construction were suspended after 1990. 

 Price regulation schemes had been abandoned 

 even earlier in 1989. Private or state-owned 

 enterprises must rely exclusively on market 

 forces. The following programs, however, 

 still receive support from the Polish 

 Government: 1) repair and maintenance of 

 fishing harbors; 2) vocational schools, 

 training sea-going personnel; and 3) scientific 

 research related to fisheries management. ^^ 



Government subsidies to the Polish 

 fishing industry were a powerful stimulus for 

 the rapid development of its fishing fleet and 

 the resulting increase in fisheries catch. The 

 ever-increasing influx of fishery products 

 brought back by Polish fishermen from the 

 proverbial seven seas, would probably have 

 depressed prices severely had it not been for 

 the artificial propping up of prices set and 

 controlled by the government. As in the 

 Soviet Union, in the final analysis, it was the 

 housewife buying a kilogram of fish at the 

 local store that financed the extravagant 

 fishery investments in the 1950s and 1960s. 

 Moreover, state-owned fishing enterprises 

 (and shipyards as well) were given direct 

 subsidies from the state budget, i.e., the 

 taxpayers' pockets. When the landings started 

 to decrease and the losses began to increase in 

 the 1970s and 1980s, it was from the 

 government's budget that the fisheries sector 

 obtained its survival funds. Some subsidies 

 are still provided to fishing companies to help 

 them restructure and resolve their most 

 pressing financial problems, but the amounts 

 granted and other details are not available. 



After the political changes in 1990, these 

 subsidies were drastically reduced. All 



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