Koreaʹs fisheries industry and government financial transfers

The Korean fisheries industry has long played a role as a national food industry with agriculture. Fisheries products supply about 39.2% of animal proteins that Korean people need. The industry, however, is facing great challenges including international arguments for reduction or abolition of fishery subsidies. Therefore, it is urgent for us to review the characteristics of fishery subsidies according to WTO, OECD, FAO and UNEP. This paper examines the status of Korean fishery industry, and to tackle the problems of the currently supported fishery policy funds, whose total amount in 1999 was more than 1 trillion Korean won with 77 fishery projects.