The replacement or modernization of 

 distant-water vessels and equipment is 

 hindered by the current financial condition of 

 the Polish high-seas fishing companies. Only 

 DALMOR possesses sufficient financial 

 resources to begin the replacement of 

 processing equipment. ODRA's financial 

 situation, and especially that of the GRYF 

 company, is poor. The general opinion in 

 Poland is that the fleet cannot be replaced 

 without considerable support from the 

 country's budget which would provide the 

 initial capital and/or low interest credits. The 

 idea has been discussed by the Polish 

 parliamentary committee dealing with 

 fisheries and has also been presented to the 

 Prime Minister. Lobbying for its 



implementation are the shipbuilding interests 

 which hope to get the orders for the new 

 modern high-seas fishing vessels.'^ 



in 1992, a total of 14 vessels have been 

 sold to foreign buyers while no new high-seas 

 trawlers were built in domestic shipyards or 

 purchased abroad. Of the 14 vessels sold, 2 

 were the large motherships of the GRYF 

 POMORSKI class. These were the last 2 

 motherships the Polish high-seas fleet still 



owned; their combined tonnage was 27,000 

 gross registered tons. The remaining 12 

 deregistered trawlers were stern factory 

 trawlers. Two of these trawlers were sold to 

 China which is expanding its high-seas 

 operations; five were purchased by German 

 companies and one was sold to the United 

 Kingdom. Between 1985-92, a total of 48 

 used Polish fishing vessels were sold with a 

 total gross tonnage of over 85,000 tons.'* 



C. Construction of Fishing Vessels 



Beginning in the mid-1960s, the Polish 

 shipbuilding industry was relatively strong. 

 The construction of fishery vessels was 

 oriented not only toward domestic demand, 

 but also toward exports to some 20 countries. 

 In the 1990s, however, vessel construction 

 began to decline as a result of 

 overcapitalization in the Baltic fishery and a 

 lack of orders from EC countries. In 1990, 

 Polish shipyards built 19 fishing vessels with 

 a total gross tonnage of 18,475 tons, but, by 

 1992, this output had decreased to 1 vessel 

 with 143 GRT (appendices 11 and 12). All 

 programs encouraging fishing vessel 

 construction have been abandoned and 

 instead, because of the overcapacity of the 

 Polish fishing fleet, efforts are being made to 

 sell off or scrap existing vessels." 



Poland has 5 shipyards building small, 

 medium, and large trawlers (table 3). The 

 total employment in these shipyards in 1991 

 was over 19,000 workers, but it is likely that 

 by 1993 this total had shrunk considerably. 



The Gdansk Shipyard continues to build 

 fisheries support vessels, but has difficulties 

 selling them. For instance, a large fishery 

 mothership was built for the DALMOR high- 

 seas company; however, in view of the 

 uncertainty surrounding Polish high-seas 

 fishing, DALMOR refused to pay for it. The 



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