In May 1990, the Government began a 

 program to privatize state-owned fishery 

 enterprises to reduce unit costs and increase 

 economic efficiency. It was envisioned that 

 fishery enterprises would divide, downsize, or 

 transform themselves into profitable 

 independent companies.^ 



n. FISHING FLEET 



In July 1993, the Polish fishing fleet 

 consisted of 300 vessels with a total capacity 

 of 276,000 GRT (table 1). Of this total, 85 

 vessels having over 250,000 GRT, or about 

 91 percent of the total fleet tonnage, were 

 engaged in high-seas operations. The smaller 



Table 1. Poland. Fishing fleet, by selected 

 vessel capacity. 1993. 



Source US Navy. Office of Naval 

 Intelligence. 27 July 1993 



vessels (100-500 GRT) are mostly cutters 

 fishing in the Baltic Sea. In addition, over 

 200 small vessels below 100 GRT capacity 

 also fished the Baltic. 



Lloyd's of London lists, in its latest 

 statistical tables for June 1992, the same 

 number of 85 high-seas fishery vessels 

 (appendix 1) and divides them into 73 high- 

 seas fishing and 12 fishery support units. 



Fishing vessels are shown by gross 

 tonnage in appendix 2. The statistics show 

 clearly the elimination of smaller side trawlers 

 in the 500-999 GRT range from 67 units in 



1975 to only 4 units by June 1992. Similarly, 

 the number of medium-sized trawlers (1,000- 

 1,999 GRT range) was less than a half of 

 those deployed in 1975 (12 units compared to 

 27 units). Although the number of large stern 

 factory trawlers remained fairly constant over 

 the last two decades (50 in 1975 and 56 in 

 1992) their number fluctuated greatly. It 

 increased from 1975 to 1977 by 22 units, or 

 by almost 50 percent. One must suppose 

 that, encouraged by the ever-increasing 

 fisheries catch which peaked in 1975 at 

 800,000 metric tons, Polish fishing companies 

 ordered 2 dozen new stern trawlers to join in 

 the distant-water fishing expansion. When the 

 extensions to 200-mile fishery zones occurred 

 in 1976 and 1977, it was probably too late to 

 stop the orders from the shipyards. The 

 reality had to be faced, however, and in 



1978, only 3 trawlers were added and none in 



1979. The high-seas trawler fleet remained 

 constant for a few years and then began to 

 decrease slowly until 1985. Because 

 replacements were built in the late 1980s, the 

 total number of stern trawlers remained the 

 same. 



Poland's fishery support vessels were 

 originally built in the 1960s, but their 

 modernization and constant replacement kept 

 the number at about 10 units. A strong 

 building program in 1988-89 increased their 

 number to 13 (appendices 3 and 4). 



For the last few years, however, Lloyd's 

 statistics have become unreliable. The 

 changes in the Polish (and probably other East 

 European fleets) are occurring so rapidly and 

 unpredictably that information is not flowing 

 quickly enough to be registered in time. The 

 OECD statistics show much lower numbers of 

 Polish stern trawlers in both 1990 (77 units) 

 and 1991 (65 units) as can be seen in 

 appendix 4. 



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