REPORT TO THE CONGRESS 
BY THE COMPTROLLER GENERAL 
OF THE UNITED STATES 
es a, 
Account 
The U.S. Fishing Industry-- 
Present Condition And 
Future Of Marine Fisheries 
The United States, with the fourth largest 
coastline and the third largest continental 
shelf in the world, has almost one-fifth of the 
world’s marine fish resources within 200 miles 
of its coastline. It might be expected that, 
with the abundance of resources, our fishing 
industry would be strong and prosperous but 
this is not the case. Domestic landings of 
edible fish have remained constant since 1960 
and some segments of the harvesting sector 
are in a chronically depressed state. The 
demand for fish has increased but U.S. land- 
ings have supplied a declining share of the 
domestic market while imports of edible 
species have increased sharply to a point 
where it represents 62 percent of the total 
demand for edible fish products. This resulted 
in a fish trade deficit of $1.4 billion in 1974. 
Opportunities exist to strengthen and expand 
the U.S. fishing industry by increasing the 
harvest and the efficiency of harvesting oper- 
ations and overcoming barriers in processing, 
marketing, and distributing fish and fish pro- 
ducts. 
VOLUME II 
CED-76-130-A 
Nee aa ES) 
