Pollack Fishing Quota in Russian Waters down 10,000 Tons

Next year`s Pollack fishing quota in Russian waters has been confirmed at 25,000 tons, down 10,000 tons from this year.

South Korea-Japan plan to agree to reduce the fishing quota in each other`s waters next year at the 7th South Korea-Japan Fisheries meeting, which is to be held in Seoul on 18th and 19th.

The Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF) announced yesterday the result of negotiation between South Korea-Russian Fishery Committee, which were held twice on Nov. 22 through 27 and Dec. 13 through 15 in Seoul and Moscow, respectively.

> South Korea-Russia fishery negotiation = Vice Maritime Affairs Minister Hong Seong-Yong said, "Instead of reducing the government quota of Pollack, the two countries decided to increase the fishing quota through the joint venture and the joint fishery from 4,700 tons to 42,000 tons next year. South Korea will be able to secure 207,000 tons of pollack if it can win 140,000 tons of quota through a private bidding."

> Vice Minister Hong added, "South Korea won a total of 165,000 tons out of 300,000 tons through a private bidding this year. While Russia reduced the TAC of pollack by 45 percent next year, it increased the international private bidding quota. Thus, it will not be difficult to reach 140,000 tons."

Despite such an explanation of the MMAF, the fishery business anticipates that the price of pollack is highly likely to rise.

It is inevitable that the price will rise according to the `principle of supply and demand` because the pollack and TAC have been greatly reduced in Russian waters. It is anticipated that the Russian government is likely to come up with higher price than the last year`s in the quota price negotiation between the governments, which is scheduled to be the end of this month.

Efficiency and economic efficiency of the joint venture and the joint fishery have not yet been sufficiently examined.

Competition among countries was not heated this year. However, it is anticipated that Japan, China, and Poland would show aggressive attitude to win the international private bidding for quota this year because the quota for the foreign government was sharply reduced from 107,000 tons to 45,000 tons.

The price of pollack already tends to rise in the market due to the speculative demand based on such outlook.

Meanwhile, cod quota for the Korean government will be 2,500 tons, same as this year, and squid quota will be 7,300 tons, up 2,300 tons from this year.

> South Korea-Japan fishery negotiation = On the one hand, Japan has insisted to reduce the quota by taking the actual result of operation into consideration from next year when the `principle of equal quota between the two countries` is applied for the first time. On the other hand, South Korea has insisted to minimize the quota reduction.

Fishing quota in each other`s waters was a total of 110,000 tons for Korea, and a total of 94,000 tons for Japan. However, the result of operation was only 20,000 tons and 2,200 tons, respectively. Therefore, the next year`s quota is anticipated to be sharply reduced compared with this year.

MMAF`s director of the fishery resource Park Duk-Bae said, "The Ministry plans to secure the quota of major fishing item as much as it can, while reducing the quota of the fishing item of which operation result is not good."

Kwang-Am Cheon iam@donga.com