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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Mauritania
Index
Figure 6. Economic Activity, 1987
Imraguen fishermen
Courtesy UNICEF (Maggie Murray-Lee)
The waters off the 754-kilometer-long coast of Mauritania are
among the richest fishing grounds in the world
(see
fig. 6). In
1986 estimates of the country's potential annual marine resources
ranged between 400,000 and 700,000 tons. Mauritanian officials
estimated the potential annual catch at 525,000 tons, a level
close to that of Senegal, which had the largest fishing industry
in West Africa. The actual catch, however, could only be
estimated on the basis of export figures from Mauritania,
recorded catches of licensed operators, and estimates of
unrecorded and unlicensed catches. Unrecorded and unlicensed
fishing in Mauritania's waters were believed to be high, perhaps
in excess of 100,000 tons annually. In 1983 recorded exports and
declared licensed fishing catches were estimated at 450,000 tons.
Combining these figures, experts believed Mauritania's waters
were close to being overfished. Although these waters had long
been commercially exploited by foreign fleets, Mauritanians
historically had done little fishing. The majority Maure
population consumed little fish, and only the small Imraguen
ethnic group fished for subsistence
(see Maures
, ch. 2).
Until 1979, Mauritania's efforts to exploit the economic
benefits of its fishing grounds focused on licensing foreign
operators in territorial waters (confined until 1980 to a thirty-
nautical-mile limit). These efforts, coupled with some port and
processing development designed to attract fleets to land their
catches at Nouadhibou, were only partially successful. The
principal benefit came in the form of licensing royalties,
calculated on the basis of 10 percent of an operator's reported
catch. Because Mauritania had no means of patrolling its waters,
many foreign operators were never licensed, and licensed
operators consistently underreported their catches. Nevertheless,
revenues from fishing royalties were very important to the
government and in 1977-78 accounted for almost 20 percent of
total budget receipts. In addition, the port and processing
facilities were underused. In 1967 only 35 percent of the 52,000-
ton annual processing capacity was used. Foreign operators
preferred to use the facilities at Las Palmas, in Spain's Canary
Islands, where they could avoid the supply, handling, water, and
electric power shortages prevalent at Nouadhibou.
In 1979 Mauritania initiated its New Fisheries Policy and
established a 200-nautical-mile EEZ. The New Fisheries Policy had
three objectives: the formation of Mauritanian-controlled joint
ventures, the creation of a national fishing fleet, and the
establishment of a Mauritanian-controlled fish processing
industry at Nouadhibou.
The first of these objectives led to the replacement of
licensing and royalties agreements with foreign operators by
newly formed Mauritanian-controlled joint ventures. In principle,
such joint ventures implied a 43 percent government share, an 8
percent local private sector share, and a 49 percent foreign
share. In practice, Mauritanian control of these ventures was
nominal. The foreign partner provided all the capital and
equipment and controlled all operations. Government and private
shares were to be purchased out of venture profits over periods
as long as twenty years. By 1986 the most important of the joint
venture agreements that had been established was the Mauritanian-
Soviet Maritime Resources Company (Mauritanienne-Soviétique des
Ressources Maritimes--MAUSSOV). Between 1985 and 1987, MAUSSOV
accounted for about 55 percent of total export tonnage and 20 to
30 percent of the total value of fish exports. The next most
important joint venture was the Mauritanian-Romanian Fishing
Company (Société Mauritano-Roumaine de Pêche--SIMAR). Between
1985 and 1987, SIMAR accounted for 16 to 18 percent of total
export tonnage and 7 to 10 percent of the total value of fish
exports. Other significant joint ventures were established with
Algeria, Iraq, and the Republic of Korea (South Korea).
The development of a national fishing fleet and processing
industry led to the creation in the early 1980s of two public
enterprises. The government also participated in and lent support
to several privately owned Mauritanian fishing and processing
companies. The most important of these was the Mauritanian
Commercial Fish Company (Société Mauritanienne de
Commercialisation du Poisson--SMCP). Owning no boats or
facilities, the SMCP was a marketing board that bought all fish
landed at Nouadhibou. By the terms of their agreements, joint
ventures were required to land a portion of their catches--in
practice, only the more valuable demersal (sea-bottom) fish--for
local processing. The SMCP arranged processing and cold storage
at port facilities before resale and export. Between 1985 and
1987, the SMCP exported 14 to 17 percent of the total catch and
accounted for 71 to 82 percent of the demersal catch, which
translated into 75 to 88 percent of the value of demersal exports
and 43 to 60 percent of the value of total fish exports. Another
public enterprise, the Mauritanian Refrigeration Company (Société
des Frigorifiques Mauritaniens--SOFRIMA), operated processing
facilities as well as a fleet of fishing boats. Several small
privately owned Mauritanian companies also operated facilities or
fleets of fishing boats.
Between 1968 and 1974, processing capacity at Nouadhibou rose
by 22 percent per year until it reached an annual capacity of
around 140,000 tons. Between 1970 and 1979, however, companies
landed between 50,000 and 80,000 tons of fish annually for
processing at Nouadhibou--far below the port's capacity. During
the first years of the New Fisheries Policy (1979 to 1982),
tonnage landed dropped to under 10,000 tons. Once joint venture
agreements were signed, however, average annual tonnage landed
began to rise, reaching about 58,500 tons annually between 1984
and 1986. Joint venture companies built additional processing
capacity, and by 1985 the port had an annual processing capacity
of some 200,000 tons. Despite government policy requiring certain
landings, however, at the rates companies were landing their
catches, only 30 percent of the port's capacity was in use.
Because of poor services and high costs, Nouadhibou was
unattractive to fishing fleets. Its principle problem was lack of
handling equipment for quickly unloading frozen or iced fish from
vessels to cold storage. In addition, fish spoiled quickly in the
desert heat, and the high cost of electrical power for processing
and cold storage (three times the cost at Las Palmas) made
landing of any but the most valuable fish varieties uneconomical.
In addition, supplies and equipment were not readily available.
Many items had to be brought in on an emergency basis by air,
further inflating the cost of operations. Local banking
facilities were limited, and international communications were
difficult and often unavailable. Finally, Nouadhibou--with only
two small hotels and scant recreational opportunities--offered
little attraction to crews of vessels calling at the port. For
the most part, crews who used the port either stayed on ship,
went directly to chartered flights home, or took commercial
flights to recreational ports such as Las Palmas or Dakar. Thus,
the local economy benefited little from their presence.
Compounding these problems, the types of fishing vessels in
use and the economics of the international market in fish
varieties also made Nouadhibou unattractive for fish processing.
The most economical types of vessels in use in the mid-1980s were
large trawlers capable of freezing, processing, and transshipping
catches independently of any port. The largest were Atlantic- and
Super Atlantic-class factory trawlers, built for the most part in
the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) and operated by the
Soviets and Romanians. In the mid-1980s, these ships accounted
for the bulk of Mauritania's reported catch, including 85 percent
of pelagic (open-sea) fish. Between 1985 and 1987, pelagic fish
represented about 79 percent of the total catch. The pelagic
catch included sardines, herring, tuna, and anchovies. Although
it represented the bulk of tonnage caught, the pelagic catch
included the least valuable of fish varieties in Mauritania's
waters and was fished almost entirely by the Soviet and Romanian
joint ventures. From 1985 to 1987, MAUSSOV and SIMAR accounted
for 90 percent of the pelagic catch. Because of their size and
draft, the Atlantic- and Super Atlantic-class pelagic freezer-
factory trawlers could not enter Nouadhibou, and they
transshipped their catches to refrigerated carrier vessels
anchored outside the port.
The most valuable varieties of seafood in Mauritania's waters
were demersals, including cod, sole, octopus, squid, lobster, and
shrimp. For these varieties, joint ventures and local operators
used demersal freezers and demersal ice boats. The ice boats had
to unload their catches for processing at port before export, but
the freezers were somewhat less dependent on port processing. In
1983 the government began requiring the landing and processing of
all demersal catches at Nouadhibou under the SMCP monopoly.
Between 1985 and 1987, the demersal catch was estimated at about
21 percent of the total catch, with the SMCP accounting for 71 to
81 percent of the demersal exports, representing as much as 60
percent of the total value of fish exports in those years.
Despite difficulties, the New Fisheries Policy was partially
successful. Its adoption led to the formation of important joint
venture operations and the growth of locally owned fishing
fleets. Efforts to encourage local fishing brought some
opportunity for sales to processors and exporters, estimated at
10,000 tons per year. In the 1983-85 period, 70 percent of the
total estimated catch in Mauritanian waters was brought in by
joint ventures and ships flying the Mauritanian flag. This
activity generated approximately US$150 million in gross export
receipts and made fishing the country's most important source of
foreign exchange. The remaining 30 percent of the reported catch
continued to be fished by companies under older licensing
agreements. These older agreements were due to expire by 1988 and
included, in particular, operations of the Spanish and Portuguese
fleets. A comprehensive fishing agreement covering the operations
of these and other European operators that mainly fished for
demersals was under negotiation with the European Community (EC)
in 1987. To better control the estimated 100,000 tons of fish
taken by unlicensed trawlers, the government, the World Bank, and
the donor community were considering measures to increase
surveillance and reporting. In late 1987, studies sponsored by
the World Bank and donor community were under way to determine
ways to increase the value-added portion of the industry to GDP.
Data as of June 1988
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