378. 
FISHING INVESTMENTS 
During the past 50 years, the Soviet Union has invested over 12 
billion rubles in her fishing industry. Investment allocations, which 
were meager during the first 20 years (about 300 million rubles), 
increased spectacularly during the 1960s. At present, over 800 million 
rubles are invested in the fishing industry each year: this is almost 
triple the sum authorized during the entire first 20 years of planned 
investment policy. 
A dramatic switch occurred in the mid-1950s (after Stalin’s death) 
in the type of programs financed by fishery investments. Until then, 
about half of the total annual fishery investments was spent on building 
up the fishing fleet; the other half was used to build ‘“‘shore plants” 
(ports, cold storage, processing plants, etc). During the subsequent 
decade (from 1956 to 1965), investments allocated to the build-up 
of the fishing fleet amounted to 78 percent of all fishery investments. 
It was during those 10 years that the U.S.S.R. more than doubled 
the gross tonnage of her fishery fleet, entered into all major distant- 
water fisheries (including those off the United States and Canada) 
and became a major fishery power with interests in all of the world’s 
oceans. 
Since 1966, this one-sided investment policy has changed somewhat, 
although 69 percent of all investments are still spent for procurement 
of fishing and fishery support vessels. It is expected that during the 
1970s the Soviets will switch their priorities once again and increase 
investment capital for programs aimed at perfecting the ‘“‘shore facili- 
ties.”” Several new fishing ports are now being constructed and the 
modernization of cold-storage plants and automation of fish-processing 
plants are both becoming major investment objectives. 
In 1975, the decision was made by the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries 
to construct 100 retail fish stores in major urban centers throughout 
the Soviet Union as well as 15 giant fish-processing complexes. These 
projects will absorb a large proportion of the total fishery investments 
during the 1976-80 planning period. However, exact data on the 
amounts to be spent are not yet available. 
THE FISHERIES CATCH 
During the early stages of its development, the Soviet fishing indus- 
try concentrated on inland freshwater fisheries and on the marine 
fisheries of the Caspian and Black Seas. After the Second World 
War, the high-seas fisheries expanded rapidly and by 1975 accounted 
for 90 percent of the total catch. The North Atlantic and the North 
Pacific are the most important grounds for Soviet fishermen. Since 
the late 1950’s, the Soviet Union has conducted extensive factoryship 
fishing operations in the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska. In the 
mid 1960’s, the fleet extended its operations southward to waters 
off Oregon and Washington, and by 1972, Soviet vessels were fishing 
off the coast of California. 
In 1961, a Soviet fishing fleet entered the fisheries on Georges 
Bank off the New England coast. The Soviet Union has since operated 
large, highly-modernized fishing fleets off New England and along 
the mid-Atlantic coast as far south as Cape Hatteras (North Carolina). 
