employees which the company had in 1989, at 

 the end of the Zhivkov regime.^' 



In April 1991, FAO reported the total 

 employment in the primary (fishermen) sector 

 of the fishing industry at 7,100 persons. The 

 high-seas fleet represented about 5,000 of this 

 total, while the employment in the Black Sea 

 fisheries was estimated at about 2,000 

 persons.^*' 



The FAO source has no information on 

 how many employees there may be in the 

 secondary (fish processing) sector. 



The rapid decrease in employment in the 

 fishing sector is having a severe effect on the 

 local economies of Burgas and Varna, the two 

 cities where the fishing industry is 

 concentrated. An additional problem is that 

 many capable Bulgarian fishing captains and 

 officers have accepted employment on vessels 

 owned by other countries.^' 



VIII. TRADE AND CONSUMPTION 



Bulgaria exported 47,000 metric tons of 

 fishery products in 1989, about one half of its 

 fisheries catch (appendix 8). The rest was 

 sold on domestic markets. This is the same 

 ratio as in 1985, but because fishery imports 

 have dwindled to almost nothing in 1989, the 

 available supply of fishery products per person 

 decreased about 30 percent to only 6.2 kg 

 from 8.7 kg in 1985. 



The large production of fishmeal in 1985 

 (44,400 tons, according to FAO") became 

 non-existent in 1989. The importation of this 

 commodity also decreased greatly from 

 146,000 t in 1985 to only 81 ,000 t in 1989, or 

 by 55 percent. The presumed cause is a lack 

 of foreign currencies. The effect on the local 



cattle and hog industries could be severe. 

 More recent information is not available. 



IX. SHIPYARDS 



In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the Ilya 

 Boyadzhiev shipyard in Burgas on the Black 

 Sea coast constructed a series of small 

 refrigerated trawlers of the SHUSH VE class; 

 the first such vessel was launched in February 

 1968. Several of these vessels were 

 constructed under contract for the former 

 Soviet fishing fleets to be used in the North 

 and Baltic Seas." Details on the current 

 activities of Bulgarian shipyards building 

 fishery vessels, their names or locations, are 

 not known. 



X. OUTLOOK 



The outlook for the Bulgarian high-seas 

 fishing industry is bleak. The lack of rapid 

 privatization after the demise of the 

 communist regime prolonged the inbred 

 inefficiency of the large government-owned 

 corporation. The high-seas fishing company, 

 OKEANSKI RIBOLOV. has been forced into 

 bankruptcy and there is little hope that the 

 current Bulgarian Government will bail it out. 

 The fisheries catch has been reduced to a 

 point where its proceeds cannot assure the 

 profitability of high-seas operations. Recently 

 concluded joint venmres with foreign 

 companies have been profitable, but they have 

 not been sufficient to enable the company to 

 pay off its large debt and restrucmre itself into 

 a streamlined private enterprise. Since much 

 of the Bulgarian high-seas catch has 

 traditionally been sold abroad for foreign 

 currencies, the effect of the diminishing catch 

 on the domestic supply of fishery products is 

 not particularly severe. Bulgaria has 



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