fleet, the largest in the nation.^ The main 

 points of the article related to the fishing fleet 

 are as follows: 



1. The Russian Far East has about 3,000 

 fishing and fishery support vessels. Of this 

 total, one-half will have to be scrapped, or 

 otherwise disposed of, by 1995. The 

 remainder will have to be replaced by the 

 year 2000. Without such a radical program, 

 the Russian Far Eastern fleet cannot become 

 profitable. 



2. The Far East has prepared a federal 

 program titled "Ryba" (fish) which proposes, 

 among other things, that the Far Eastern 

 Fisheries Administration (DALRYBA) be 

 given an official annual catch quota allocation 

 of 200,000 t of Alaska pollock. By selling 

 this catch quota to the highest foreign bidder 

 at auction in Vladivostok, DALRYBA hopes 

 to obtain about US$80 million which would 

 be used to purchase replacement fishery 

 vessels abroad. 



C. Fleet Reduction 



According to the U.S. Navy, Russia has 

 reduced its high-seas fishing fleet by 34 units 

 and 183,117 CRT during the last 2 years 

 (appendix 5). Twenty-five vessels with a 

 total of 152,603 GRT were reflagged to 

 various countries, mainly Cyprus and 

 Panama. About half of these were fairly new 

 vessels, including 9 NEVELSK-class trawlers 

 built in Norway in 1991 and 1992. This may 

 indicate that they were probably reflagged for 

 convenience only. The other 9 units are 

 listed as inactive, but it is likely that they 

 were scrapped for iron as they were between 

 26 and 38 years old. 



Another 3 units, 2 huge processing 

 baseships of the POSET class and 1 large 

 stern factory trawler, were reportedly for sale 

 in May 1993 by the Vladivostok Fishing and 

 Trawling Fleet Base (VBTRF) which is trying 

 to earn hard currency (appendix 5). It is not 

 known whether these units have been sold. 



To accumulate investment funds, 

 Moskaltsov's plan also proposes that the 

 Russian fishing companies (state-owned and 

 privatized) which are part of the DALRYBA 

 regional organization, be exempted from the 

 customs duties until the end of 1996.^ In 

 addition, the DALRYBA companies should 

 not be required to pay for diesel fuel in 

 advance, and the Russian Government should 

 authorize a special credit of 25 billion rubles 

 to cover half of the debt which various 

 Russian companies and state organizations 

 outside the Far Eastern economic zone owe 

 DALRYBA for purchased fishery products 

 and other services. 



The Russian high-seas fleets suffer from 

 overcapacity, an abundance of aged vessels, 

 and a dearth of available hard currency. It is 

 therefore extremely likely that many more 

 units than are known to the Navy have 

 recently been scrapped, reflagged, or sold. 

 This process of reduction, however, is 

 probably occurring piecemeal, and at a rapid 

 pace. As a result, little information is 

 available except from official Russian sources 

 which did not cooperate in the preparation of 

 this report. 



D. Fishermen's Productivity 



The efficiency of the high-seas fishing 

 fleet of the so-called "socialist" countries has 

 been discussed many times, although there is 

 little statistical or analytical information to 



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