410. 
Indian Ocean and inland fisheries 
In the early 1960’s, the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries planned to 
greatly expand its catches in the Indian Ocean, where hitherto no 
fishing had been done by the Soviet Union. The plans provided for 
a 200,000 ton catch by 1965. This timetable was repeatedly delayed, 
but in 1963, Soviet commercial vessels from the Black Sea Administra- 
tion did begin to fish in the Arabian Sea and the Persian Gulf. The 
catches increased rapidly to 76,000 tons in 1966, but when, in June 
1967, the Arab-Israeli war caused the closure of the Suez Canal, 
the Soviet plans suffered a setback. Catches were minimal in the 
next 2 years (table 3). After the Soviet Ministry of Fisheries concluded 
several contracts with Pakistan and other countries adjacent to the 
Indian Ocean to explore the availability of fishery resources off their 
coasts, the catches suddenly went up to over 240,000 tons in 1971. 
The contract with the Pakistanis was soon terminated and the Soviet 
catches decreased rapidly to only 44,000 tons in 1973. With the 
opening of the Suez Canal in mid-1975, a new Soviet attempt to 
increase the Indian Ocean’s contribution to the total catch, which 
in 1973 amounted to only one-half of 1-percent, must be expected. 
In the Azov and Black Seas as well as in the Soviet inland waters, 
the fisheries catch is relatively stable. It appears that the level of 
maximum sustainable yield has been reached in both of these tradi- _ 
tional fishing areas: each time the Soviet fishermen attempt to increase 
their catch, the fish resources of the area cannot sustain the increased 
exploitation and the catches begin to decrease. These cyclical move- 
ments are shown statistically in table 3, and graphically in figure 
8. 
