Fisheries subsidies data at your fingertips March 2024
The OECD Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE) database is a unique source of information on government support to capture fisheries, allowing policy makers and other actors to understand, compare and assess fisheries policies across OECD countries and other large fishing nations. Governments typically use a wide range of policies to support their capture fisheries. This can include, for example, the management of fish stocks and regulation of fishing activities; income support for fishers; or subsidies to purchase or modernise vessels and gear.
Governments also typically charge the fishing sector for some of the support it provides, for example, with fees for using port infrastructure, licence fees or taxes on fishing activities. The FSE database provides comparable and standardised information on all these policies. It compiles and categorises data reported to the OECD by governments and collected by the OECD from official government documentation following a method that makes them comparable across countries and time. It covers 40 countries, which together represent 90% of global capture fisheries production by volume.
What data does the FSE contain? This unique database is publicly accessible on the OECD statistical portal, and is updated every two years, with data starting in 2010. For each country in the database, a list of all relevant policies is provided, with policy-level data on: The nature of support (what is being supported by a policy) or sector contribution (what is being paid for by the sector). The cost of support or the value of payments by the sector, which is, the amounts disbursed or collected by the government with each policy on a yearly basis. Some of the key characteristics of those policies, such as who is eligible for support.
Relevant policies include: • Direct payments to individuals and companies in the fishing sector, e.g. fuel and vessel subsidies or income support. • Public financing of services and infrastructure, such as monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS); port construction and operation; or payments for access to foreign waters • Tax concessions, such as reductions on or exemptions from taxes on fuel for fishing or import duties on fishing gear. • Concessional finance, i.e. access to finance on preferential terms, such as below-market interest rates on loans for acquiring fishing vessels. • Payments made by the fisheries sector to public finances, such payments to access fish resources (e.g. fishing licence fees), for using infrastructure (e.g. port-use fees) and for fisheries management (e.g. general fishing fees or quota management fees).
4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 CHN JPN USA BRA IND NOR POL KOR SWE DNK ITA TUR PER NZL MYS AUS MEX TWN GBR ISL IRL ESP IDN GRC ARG DEU VNM CRI BEL PRT CHL EST NLD LVA LTU FRA COL SVN PHL
USD billion
Total support in the FSE database (2020)
Source: OECD (2022), Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE), http://stats.oecd.org/wbos/default.aspx?datasetcode=FISH_FSE.
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