The OECD Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE) Manual

The OECD Fisheries Support

What is the FSE database?

The OECD Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE) database measures, describes and classifies policies providing support to capture fisheries (both marine and inland, but excluding aquaculture), as well as policies that result in a contribution by the fisheries sector to public finances. 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.

Better policy decisions depend on good data. The 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 policies across OECD countries and other major fishing nations.

Why use this manual?

To report FSE data. Completeness, consistency and accuracy are key to ensuring the FSE database remains a reliable source of information This manual guides those reporting to the FSE database to ensure the data submitted are as high quality as possible by clearly detailing what should be reported and how it should be reported It provides practical guidance, backed up by “real life” examples, to help data reporters identify all the policies that fall within the scope of the FSE and report all the needed information accurately, notably by quantifying the value of support each policy provides and determining where each policy fits in the FSE classification.

To use FSE data. This manual also aims to guide interpretation of FSE data by increasing transparency over how data are collected and categorised.

What does the FSE database capture?

• All support policies specifically targeting capture fisheries. These include:

o Direct payments to individuals and companies in the fishing sector, such as fuel and vessel subsidies or income support.

o Public financing of fisheries services and infrastructure, such as monitoring, control and surveillance (MCS); port construction and operation; or payments for access to foreign waters.

o Tax concessions, such as reductions on or exemptions from taxes on fuel for fishing or import duties for fishing gear.

o Concessional finance, i.e. policies which enable fishers to access finance with preferential terms, such as below-market interest rates on loans for acquiring fishing vessels.

• All policies resulting in payments made by the fisheries sector to public finances These include taxes on and fees for fishing activities, or payments for access to fishing infrastructure.

• Support policies that benefit the fishing sector, but not exclusively. Reporting these is optional but encouraged Referred to as ‘non-specific support’, these policies might include regional development or disaster relief programmes for coastal areas or fuel tax exemptions for off-road uses.

Any questions on the FSE?

Interested in contributing? Please get in touch!

The OECD Fish team can be reached at: fish.contact@oecd.org

This work is published under the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the member countries of the OECD.

This document, as well as any data and map included herein, are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area

1 Introduction

What is the FSE database?

The OECD Fisheries Support Estimate (FSE) database measures, describes and classifies policies providing support to capture fisheries (both marine and inland, but excluding aquaculture), as well as policies that result in a contribution by the fisheries sector to public finances. It compiles data reported to the OECD by governments and collected by the OECD from official government documentation in a way that makes them comparable across countries and time.

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 provides comparable and standardised information on all these policies.

This unique database is publicly accessible on the OECD statistical portal, and is updated every two years, with data starting in 2010 Information is recorded 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 (for example who is eligible for support).

In 2023, the FSE database covered 40 countries – 30 OECD countries and 10 other large fishing nations (Table 1). Together they represented 90% of global capture fisheries production by volume over 2018-20.

OECD countries covered in the FSE database

Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Türkiye, United Kingdom, United States

Other fishing nations covered in the FSE database

Argentina, Brazil, China (People's Republic of), Chinese Taipei, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Peru, Philippines, Viet Nam

Table 1. FSE database geographical coverage

Note: This table represents the situation at the time this manual was last updated, i.e. March 2024

Who uses the data?

The FSE database offers an objective and standardised evidence base to underpin the work of the OECD Fisheries Committee (COFI). Through policy analysis, impact assessment and policy dialogue, the COFI supports countries to develop fisheries policies that meet domestic priorities and that ensure the sustainability of fish stocks and ocean ecosystems.

The FSE also serves as an input into the work of member and partner countries themselves, as well as into research in general. It is designed in a way that allows users to understand and assess policies in their own country, learn from cross-country comparisons, and look at how specific policies evolve over time.

The data can be used in many ways, such as to compute policy indicators or for modelling exercises to assess policy outcomes.

What is this manual for?

This manual has been created to guide those in charge of reporting policy data to the FSE database in response to data questionnaires sent out by the OECD. It aims to ensure the FSE data are complete, consistent and accurate by clearly detailing what should be reported and how it should be reported

It provides practical guidance, backed up by “real life” examples, to help data reporters:

• Identify all the policies that fall within the scope of the FSE

• Quantify the cost of support each policy provides (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 and estimate these values when data are not readily available

• Classify policies into the correct FSE category on the basis of what they support or what fishers are charged for

• Provide additional information, as required, to describe each policy.

The manual should also prove useful to FSE data users as a source of information on the nature of FSE data and as a guide for interpretation, further contributing to transparency in this area.

What can be found in this manual?

The Manual starts by discussing what should be reported to the FSE database, describing the scope of policies it covers, and the type of information required to describe and classify policies. It then provides a step-by-step guide to reporting to the database. Finally, it defines and describes the FSE policy categories in detail and provides specific policy examples and reporting tips for each of them. The Manual also contains a glossary of key terms.

The FSE manual is a living document and is revised as necessary. This version is dated March 2024

Need more help?

The OECD secretariat can provide technical support for data collection, reporting, interpretation and use. Please do not hesitate to contact the OECD Fish team to clarify any doubts you may have, make suggestions for improvements or provide other feedback. The OECD Fish team can be reached at fish.contact@oecd.org

2 What does the FSE database capture?

The scope of the FSE database

The FSE database focuses on policies affecting the fishing sector, also referred to as capture fisheries – which covers both marine and inland fisheries but excludes aquaculture (Box 1). It aims to catalogue and describe the level and nature of all government support to capture fisheries regardless of its objectives and economic impacts:

• It is mandatory for data reporters to cover all the support policies that specifically (i.e. exclusively) target the fishing sector

• Policies that also benefit a number of other sectors in addition to fisheries are optional for reporting, but it is helpful to include them

• The FSE database also requires information on policies that result in contributions by the fishing sector to public finances

Box 1. What do we mean by ‘capture fisheries’ or the ‘fishing sector’?

Capture fisheries – also referred to as the fishing sector – refer to all actors and activities involved in fishing in both marine and inland waters (Glossary), and for both commercial and recreational purposes.

Capture fisheries can also include ‘enhanced fisheries’, i.e. fish capture in waters where fish have been stocked to breed or grow, as well as ‘culture-based fisheries’, i.e. the capture of fish that are regularly stocked. However, aquaculture is always excluded.

Capture fisheries also include any operation that supports capture activities up to the point of first sale, such as landing, packaging, and on-board primary processing (e.g. sorting, grading, washing, handling, fileting, chilling or freezing); transhipping or transporting fish that have not been previously landed at a port; as well as providing personnel, fuel, gear and other supplies to fishing vessels on the water

Vessels involved in fishing-related activities are also included under the fishing sector. They may include, but are not limited to, refrigerated transport vessels, supply vessels, reefer vessels (vessel receiving fish for transport as frozen products), motherships (vessels providing supplies and services to fishing vessels), factory ships (vessel receiving fish for on-board processing), fish carriers (used to transport fish, supplies, and crew to and from fishing vessels, allowing fishing vessels to stay out at sea for longer periods of time) and well boats (vessels designed to transport live fish)

All policies providing specific support to capture fisheries (mandatory reporting)

Capture fisheries-specific support is any policy that results in public money being used for the benefit of the fishing sector, or individuals and companies in the sector, and that is not available to other sectors of the economy.

All types of capture fisheries-specific support policies should be included in the FSE database, whether support is budgetary in nature (i.e. resulting from a transfer of public money) or whether it comes through revenue foregone 1 They include:

• Direct payments to individuals and companies in the fishing sector (fishers, vessel owners and beneficial owners), such as fuel and vessel subsidies or income support. These are often referred to as ‘fisheries subsidies’.

• 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 for fishing gear.

• Concessional finance, i.e. policies which enable fishers to access finance with preferential terms, such as below-market interest rates on loans for acquiring fishing vessels (Box 2).

Box 2. Concessional finance in the FSE

Concessional finance is generally achieved by granting interest rates that are lower than market rates, longer repayment periods, longer grace periods or a combination of these preferential terms. Unlike most other support policies, which are typically provided by government entities themselves, concessional finance is often provided through government-owned financial institutions, which act as intermediaries. In the European Union (EU), the European Investment Bank (EIB) also provides similar services.

Governments can support the provision of finance on preferential terms with grants to the providers of concessional finance (e.g. interest rebates) and, indirectly, by enabling low-cost funding. For example, government-owned financial institutions can raise funding at a lower cost in the market via the issuance of bonds with the government guarantee or implicit government guarantee and they can benefit from low-cost borrowing (e.g. on-lending operations) from the government or central bank in some countries.

Assessing the entire magnitude of concessional finance in the fisheries sector thus requires investigating not only the size of direct government grants, but also indirect government support enabling the provision of concessional finance. All forms of concessional finance should be reported in terms of the value of the programme, i.e. the total government support envelope allocated to compensate for offering concessional finance to the fisheries sector.

1 The FSE database does not cover market price support (MPS), that is, support granted through policies that influence the price of fisheries products and result in price differentials at the border. While calculating MPS has been a longestablished practice when measuring support to agriculture at the OECD, comparing “like with like” in terms of prices is particularly difficult for fish because of the diversity of fish stocks and the price implications of certain production characteristics (for example whether the fish were wild-caught or raised on an aquaculture farm).

Policies that benefit the fishing sector along with some other sectors (optional reporting)

While it is not mandatory to report policies that provide non-specific support to fisheries (NSSF), doing so provides a more complete understanding of the policies influencing capture fisheries. NSSF refers to policies that benefit the fishing sector in addition to a number of other sectors, but not the entire economy. Examples include support policies for all food sectors, regional development for coastal areas, disaster relief programmes, or fuel tax concessions applying to all off-road uses.

The degree of specificity of a support policy can vary. Policies that benefit only capture fisheries and aquaculture tend to be considered as quite specific and the capture fisheries component of these polices is reported to the FSE database by most participating countries and economies. Policies benefitting a wider range of sectors, such as all marine activities or all off-road fuel uses, are considered to be less specific and are reported to the FSE less often.

When policies providing NSSF are reported to the FSE database, only the portion of the policy envelope relating to the fisheries sector should be reported. For example, where a fuel tax concession benefits both fisheries and agriculture, the benefit to the fishing sector would correspond to the value of the concession multiplied by the volume of fuel consumed by the fishing sector. When a policy benefits both capture fisheries and aquaculture (which is not covered by the FSE) but the respective shares are unknown, the capture fisheries component can be estimated based on the relative value generated by each sector (Chapter 3, Steps 2 and 3).

Policies providing NSSF are clearly identified in the database using a dedicated label (Chapter 3, Step 4) This allows them to be filtered out if the desired focus is on capture fisheries-specific support only. This is important for consistency as not all countries choose to report policies providing NSSF to the FSE database.

All specific contributions from the fishing sector to public finances (mandatory reporting)

Knowing how much the fishing sector contributes to the cost of fisheries services, or to governments’ budgets more generally, is helpful to investigate the net cost of fisheries policies to the public budget. In certain cases, contributions by the sector are greater than support for the sector, making the sector a net contributor to public finances.

The most common contributions made by the fishing sector to public finances tend to be payments made for accessing resources (e.g. fishing licence fees), for using infrastructure (such as port-use fees) and for fisheries management (e.g. general fishing fees, quota management fees).

Only payments for fisheries-specific purposes should be reported. General taxes levied across the economy are outside the scope of the FSE and should not be reported. In addition, fines and penalties related to illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing practices are also outside the scope of the FSE.

The structure of the FSE database

Policy categories

The FSE database classifies policies based on:

• what is being supported (for example, support to vessel construction and purchase), OR

• what fishers are being charged for (for example, payments for access to resources).

The FSE categories are designed to be mutually exclusive. They are listed in Table 2 and, for ease of use, support policies are numbered, from S01 to S17, while policies which result in payments by the fisheries sector are numbered from P01 to P03. Detailed descriptions of each category, along with examples of the types of policies that sit within them, are provided in Chapter 4

Policy information

For each policy, the FSE database reports the cost of support provided (or the value of payments by the sector), which is, the amounts disbursed and foregone (or collected) by the government with each policy on a yearly basis. A description of each policy is also included in the metadata.

Policy labels

The FSE also describes policies using a set of labels that identify their key characteristics. These labels flag, for example, whether policies exclusively target small-scale fishing; whether they exclude distant-water fishing operations; whether policies provide fisheries-specific support, support that is related to an emergency situation, or support that is related to climate mitigation objectives.

Assigning labels to each policy makes it possible to differentiate between policies according to key characteristics, enabling data users to sort, filter or aggregate FSE data depending on their needs for interpretation and analysis The labels for each policy characteristic of interest are defined and described in Table 3 in Chapter 3.

Table 2. FSE policy categories

Support to the fisheries sector

S01 Support to vessel construction and purchase

S02 Support to vessel modernisation and purchase of gear

S03 Support to fuel consumption

S04 Support for access to infrastructure

S05 Support to infrastructure construction and modernisation

Direct payment to vessel owner (i.e. vessel subsidy); revenue foregone due to tax concession on related taxes such as import taxes; cost of dedicated preferential finance to buy a vessel

Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. vessel modernisation subsidy); revenue foregone due to tax concession on related taxes such as import taxes; cost of dedicated preferential finance to modernise a vessel

Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. fuel subsidy); revenue foregone due to tax concession on fuel taxes

Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. subsidised access to infrastructure); cost of operating public infrastructure

Cost of infrastructure construction or modernisation programme or direct payment (i.e. subsidy) to infrastructure provider; cost of dedicated concessional finance for constructing or modernising infrastructure

S06 Support for access to other countries’ waters Payment by the government to a foreign government or direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. subsidy) to compensate for the fees paid to access foreign waters

S07 Support to fisher income

Direct payment to fishers not covered by other FSE categories (i.e. income subsidy)

S08 Preferential insurance for fishers Cost of preferential insurance programme

S09 Buyback of vessel or licence Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. subsidy) for giving up on a fishing licence or decommissioning of a vessel

S10 Support for education and training Direct payment to fisher (i.e. education and training subsidies) or cost of running a programme

S11 Support for environmental maintenance Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner (i.e. environmental subsidy) for environmental services or cost of programme

S12 Support for marketing and promotion Direct payment to fisher (i.e. subsidy) or cost of programme

S13 Support to research and development other than stock assessment

S14 Stock assessment

S15 Monitoring, control and surveillance

S16 Fisheries management

S17 Other support

Payments

P01 Payments for access to resources

P02 Payments for access to governmentowned infrastructure

P03 Other fisheries-specific payments

Direct payment to fisher/vessel owner/vessel constructor/research group (i.e. R&D subsidy) or cost of programme

Cost of programme (including, inter alia, data collection and human resources); payment to external body conducting stock assessments

Cost of programme (including inter alia, at sea surveillance, VMS and AIS systems, observer programmes)

Cost of programme (including, inter alia, stock enhancement, participation in RFMOs, administering of stock management tools)

Any other direct payment, revenue foregone, preferential finance, cost of programme

Payment by fishers and vessel owners such as registration and license fees, quota purchase or lease from government

Payment by fishers and vessel owners such as for access to port premises and services

Any other payment by fishers and vessels owners including, inter alia, taxes on post-corporate tax profits, taxes on landing value or fees per unit of landed volume to recover the cost of management or other services

Note: For more detail of each of these categories, see Chapter 4.

3 A step-by-step guide to reporting to the FSE database

Who, how and when?

FSE data are compiled and submitted to the OECD by national authorities in response to a request sent by the OECD Secretariat to all participating countries. The request takes the form of country-specific FSE questionnaires, which are pre-filled with data from the previous rounds of the survey. They are sent to designated counterparts in the national administration of participating countries and economies for updating with the latest data FSE data are sometimes also collected by designated consultants contracted by the OECD to collect data for countries and economies who do not participate directly in the work of the OECD Fisheries Committee. The data collected by consultants are derived from official government documentation.

The data cycle runs every two years In each cycle, data are collected for the previous two years. A data request will be sent in year T asking for data for years T-1 and T-2. The next request will be sent in year T+2, asking for data for years T and T+1. So, for example, the questionnaires sent out in 2024 ask for data for 2022 and 2023, and the following questionnaires, sent out in 2026, ask for 2024 and 2025 data

An overview of the reporting process

Reporting data in the FSE database generally requires five main steps:

1. Identifying all the support polices that fall within the scope of the FSE

2. Quantifying the cost of support (or value of payments) for each policy

3. Allocating each policy to the correct FSE category (or categories)

4. Describing the key characteristics of each policy by applying the correct policy labels

5. Ensuring all the required information is reported correctly in the FSE questionnaire

The quality of the data within the FSE database, i.e. its accuracy, completeness, and consistency, depends upon completing all these steps properly. Together, they ensure that all relevant policies are reported; the value of the support they provide is both correctly calculated and assigned within the FSE classification; and all necessary complementary information is included.

Many fisheries support policies are easy to identify and quantify, but some are less clear For example, direct payments to individuals and companies in the sector are generally easy to observe and quantify (e.g. a subsidy envelope). On the other hand, the cost to public finances of the provision of services (such as research, management, or monitoring and enforcement activities), while visible, can be more difficult to quantify. Other support mechanisms can be both less visible and less straightforward to quantify, such as tax revenues foregone, or the transfer of risk to government via preferential insurance policies. The sections below provide guidance for dealing with these more complex areas when completing the questionnaire

Each step is described in turn However, Steps 2 and 3 – quantifying the cost of support (or value of payments) and allocating a policy to the correct FSE categories – are described together as they are linked and often completed in parallel For example, when a policy funds more than one type of support, how this support is allocated to different FSE categories depends on the granularity of available data, thus the quantification and allocation of this policy will occur together

Step 1: Identifying all the support policies relevant to the FSE

Step 1 involves identifying all fisheries-specific support policies, as reporting these is mandatory. Typically, these policies will be handled by fisheries authorities at the national level and information can be found in the annual reports of these authorities. In European Union member countries, a large share of the support will consist of the dedicated European funds (e.g. the European Maritime, Fisheries and Aquaculture Fund over the period 2021-2027). However, additional national or sub-national funds should also be reported.

In addition, to ensure all relevant policies are identified, it might prove helpful to pay particular attention to some types of policies that can be easily overlooked and to explore additional sources of fisheries support. The sub-steps below help to guide this process, and include a series of questions to ensure all relevant policies are identified:

Pay particular attention to fisheries-specific policies that are more difficult to identify

Asking the following questions can help identify policies that may not be captured in the annual reports of the fisheries authorities:

• Does my country have access agreements allowing the domestic fleet, or segments of it, to gain access to the waters of foreign countries?

o If payments are made by public entities to foreign entities in the context of such agreements, they should be reported

o If fishing companies receive support to compensate for the cost of paying for access to foreign waters themselves, this should be reported

• Do fishers have access to fuel at preferential rates?

o If fishers benefit from fuel tax concessions that specifically target the fisheries sector, they should be reported.

o If fisheries benefit from fuel tax concessions that target a range of sectors including fisheries, this will fall under non-specific support whose reporting is optional but strongly recommended.

• Do fishers have access to finance with preferential conditions (e.g. below-market loans or equity)?

o If fishers benefit from concessional finance specifically addressed to the fisheries sector, the cost related to offering preferential conditions should be reported

o If fisheries benefit from concessional finance accessible to a range of sectors, including fisheries, this will fall under non-specific support whose reporting is optional but strongly recommended.

• Have any policies been reported under ‘fisheries management (S16)’; ‘monitoring, control and surveillance (S15)’ and under any of the ‘payments by the sector (P1, P2 or P3)’?

o If not, consider whether this is correct, as these policies tend to be forgotten, but are in fact in place in many countries.

TIP

Systematically check FSE categories for which data have never been reported and consider whether this is correct. If you identify policies that have been forgotten in the past, historical data can always be added (Step 5).

Investigate all possible sources of support to capture fisheries, including ministries and government agencies not in charge of fisheries

A range of bodies can implement policies that support fisheries, in addition to the main fisheries authority, the cost of which, for fisheries, should be identified and reported. For example:

• The coastguard or navy can be involved in fisheries monitoring and enforcement activities

• Inter-governmental or regional bodies, such as regional management organisations and arrangements (RFMO/As), can be involved in fisheries management, in which case, the country contribution to the budget of those bodies should be reported

• Research centres financed by the government can be involved in assessing the status of fish stocks. These can also be regional bodies (such as the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea – ICES), in which case, the country contribution to the budget of that body should be reported

• The Ministry of Finance may, for example, grant tax concessions.

• The Environment Ministry and agencies specifically responsible for environmental issues may, for example, grant support for environment maintenance

• National research institutes and technical extension services may provide services for fisheries, such as education and research

• The Ministry of Transport may provide or operate fishing infrastructure

• National systems for social protection (e.g. Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs) may provide income support or emergency payments to compensate for lost fishing or weatherrelated impacts

• Sub-national entities may provide support at the regional or local level. For example, in a country with a federal government structure, support from national as well as state, provincial or prefecture levels should be covered, as well as measures that are financed more locally, for example from counties, communes or townships.

• Semi-public or private entities may also provide support being themselves financed by public money. For example, fisher organisations such as community-based management groups may be involved in policy implementation. Banks may deliver fisheries investment loans with preferential conditions (generally interest concessions). When the cost of those policies is covered by public money (e.g. governments making up the cost of preferential loan conditions to banks), they should also be reported to the FSE database.

TIP

Avoid any double counting when reporting support that originates from national (or European) level budgets but is administered at a different administrative level or by non-public entities.

Identify policies providing non-specific support to fisheries (NSSF)

Policies providing NSSF are frequently unreported. Such data are not strictly missing given that reporting is optional and voluntary; however, we would strongly encourage data reporters to include NSSF policies in their reporting. Therefore, Step 1 should also include identifying these policies and finding out from competent authorities whether they can be reported.

One reason these data are often not reported may be that the support is granted by institutions other than the ministry or agency in charge of fisheries management. To improve the completeness and relevance of the FSE, data reporters are encouraged to reach out to other administrative entities (such as those listed above) to investigate the possibility of reporting information on NSSF policies.

Steps 2 and 3: Quantifying and allocating support (or payments) to the correct FSE categories

General rules for quantifying support and payments

• Report values based on a calendar year. When support (or cost recovery) policies have cycles that correspond to fishing seasons, or if the budget cycle is based on fiscal years, they may not align with the calendar year In these cases, you will need to estimate how the cost of support (or the value of payments) has been distributed by calendar year

• Report values in the national currency of the reporting country These amounts will be converted into US dollars by the OECD and will be publicly released in both the national currency and as US dollars If a change of currency has occurred, data should be reported in the most recent currency for the whole time series

• Report values in gross terms, that is, the gross value of the spend should be reported without adjusting for costs incurred by fishers to receive the support (such as the cost of meeting compliance conditions attached to certain payments, tax recovery, or contributions to management costs)

• Report values as funds that have been disbursed or received, as opposed to budgeted funds. The goal is to capture information on transfers that have actually taken place. The difference between budgeted and actual disbursed outlays can be large, for example when additional emergency assistance is provided beyond the initial budget envelope, or when budgeted funds are not in fact claimed by the sector as policy uptake is lower than anticipated If information is not available at the time of reporting on amounts actually disbursed or collected for the most recent years, report the budgeted or estimated expenditures instead. Then, in the next FSE data call, the value of support actually disbursed or collected should be updated to reflect the actual transfers

Make any corrections to data for the year in which the transfer happened (even if the extra budgets are allocated or returned to central funds in subsequent years). If the distribution agencies return funds that are unused (e.g. if the uptake of support falls short of budgeted expectations), they should be credited against the year of disbursement, not the year the funds are returned. This approach ensures the annual values of support reported in the FSE reflect the true level of support dispersed in that year, and avoids negative FSE values in any given year (which can occur if budgets are smaller in later periods).

How to report the cost of support or the value of payments and allocate them to the relevant FSE category

To quantify the cost of support (or the value of payments) for each policy, and find where it fits in the FSE structure, data reporters should consider the following questions:

• Is the full cost of support (or value of payments) linked to this policy available from the administrative records?

• Does the support provided by this policy (or funds collected) fall within a single FSE category?

The simplest case is when the answers to both questions are ‘yes’ (Figure 1) When the cost of a support policy (or value of payments) is available from administrative records and the policy clearly fits within a single FSE category (as listed in Table 1 and detailed in Chapter 4), identifying and reporting the cost of support (or value of payments) under one FSE category is straightforward.

Example

A country has a policy whereby the government purchases fishing licenses from fishers to reduce overcapacity in a specific fishery (i.e. buybacks) The total annual cost of the policy is reported by calendar year and in the national currency as part of the regular budgetary reporting process. This figure is exactly what needs to be reported to the FSE. It meets the general rules listed above for periodicity and currency, and the type of support fits entirely within the category ‘S09 – Buyback of vessel or licence’.

Several policies can be reported under the same category when they support similar things or services (at the same time, or successively over time).

Example

A country has a policy to support young fishers to buy small-scale vessels. This should be reported under category ‘S01 – Support to vessel construction and purchase’. The country also has a policy exempting imported fishing vessels from import taxes for fishers operating in under-exploited fisheries – this should also be reported under S01. Another example: A country has invested in port construction in one region, and port modernisation in another region; in this case, both policies should be reported under ‘S05 - Support to infrastructure construction and modernisation’.

How to estimate and allocate support and payments when information on their cost or value is incomplete

Where information is lacking or where policies are less specific, it will be necessary to calculate or estimate figures for the cost of support or the value of payments:

1. What to do when the cost of support (or value of payments) is not directly available from administrative records?

This can be a common occurrence for policies such as tax concessions, where costs to government are incurred through revenues foregone, rather than monies paid out (and therefore costs to public finances are not always regularly calculated or published by the authorities). To calculate the costs of such policies, one approach is to determine the unit value of the support (i.e. the revenue forgone for each unit of the good or service benefitting from a tax concession) and combine this with data on quantities produced,

traded or consumed. This approach is commonly used to calculate the value of revenues foregone for fuel tax concessions 2

Example

A country exempts imports of specific fishing gear from an import tax of 15% on the value of imported goods. The cost of support can be calculated as 15% of the total import value for this gear (as reported to custom authorities) in any given year.

2. What to do when figures on the cost of support (or value of payments) are not available for a calendar year?

This will typically require estimates to be made. For example, if funding is provided on the basis of a financial year which does not align with the calendar year, assuming that funds are dispersed evenly over the year, you can calculate the monthly amount and then reaggregate it to represent the calendar year value

Example

The value of support is available from January of year T to March of year T+1 because March is the cut-off month for budget spending in your country. To estimate the support in year T, divide the total amount of support over the 15-month period by 15, and multiply the result by 12. The remainder can be allocated to year T+1

3. What to do when there is not enough information available on the cost of support (or value of payments) to unambiguously allocate the policy into one FSE category?

If the available information on amounts spent or raised corresponds to policies which span multiple FSE categories (e.g. the total budget of an agency implementing a range of fisheries services), apportion the cost of support (or value of payments) across all the relevant FSE categories. Follow the steps below (and see the decision tree in Figure 1):

• See if you can find additional detail from other sources on what is supported (or charged for), then use the information to apportion the total figure across the relevant FSE categories using assumed percentage shares

• If information is not detailed enough to apportion the total figure across different categories, but there is knowledge of the category of support where the largest share of money is likely to have been disbursed, allocate the total figure to that FSE category.

• In the complete absence of any information or knowledge with which to guide this process, the figure can be evenly apportioned across all potentially relevant categories. While such estimations imply some error, this is preferable to omitting the cost of support (or value of payments) altogether.

• Only report figures in the ‘Other support’ category as a last resort

2 See for example, Carvalho, N. and J. Guillen (2021), Economic Impact of Eliminating the Fuel Tax Exemption in the EU Fishing Fleet, https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052719. Martini, R. (2012), Fuel Tax Concessions in the Fisheries Sector, OECD Publishing, Paris, https://doi.org/10.1787/5k9bdccqft30-en

Example

An agency implements a range of fisheries services involving training (which should be reported under category ‘S10 Support for education and training’) and marketing (which should be reported under ‘S12 Support for marketing and promotion’). The only cost information you can find is their total annual budget. List all the services offered and allocate each to the correct FSE category. Attempt to find information from other sources on the relative shares spent on each of these activities and apportion the total budget accordingly. In the absence of information to do so, apportion the total budget evenly across all the relevant categories.

4. What to do if the support policy benefits fisheries in addition to other sectors, and only the total budget is known

• If you know the cost of a policy providing support to a number of sectors, including fisheries, but there is no other information available on the relative shares of the support for individual sectors, use the relative size of each sector to calculate the split.

Calculate the relative size of each sector using its share of the total production value (if available). If that information is unavailable, use its share of the total production volume

Example

An agency provides a training programme on vessel safety (which should be reported under category ‘S10 Support for education and training’) to both fisheries and offshore aquaculture producers, but there is not information on how the course are split between the two. Calculate the ratio of capture fisheries production to offshore aquaculture (preferably in value terms, and alternatively in quantity) and use this to estimate the proportion of the programme that directly benefits capture fisheries.

TIP

Calculation is always preferable to estimation.

Information from other sources should be sought to guide your calculations (or estimates).

Whenever a figure is estimated, provide any information that is useful for understanding the supporting documentation and the approach used (Step 5).

Is the cost of support (or value of payments by the sector) available?

Yes

No

Is the figure provided with sufficient detail to report by FSE category?

Yes

Report figure in the relevant individual FSE category

No

Calculate cost of support or value of payments using official data for the different parameters (e.g. fuel consumption * tax concession/litre)

The cost or value needs to be calculated or estimated according to available information:

If the available figure covers more than one FSE category, apportion it using assumed percentage shares, using knowledge of the likely relative distribution of funds

If the available figure covers more than one sector, apportion it across sectors using information about their relative size (% of total production value or % total production volume)

If only the major recipient category is known, allocate the total cost of support or value of payments raised by the policy to that category

If no guiding information is available on the spread of support across several categories, evenly apportion the figure across all relevant categories

If no information about relevant categories, allocate to the ‘Other support’ category

Figure 1. Deciding when to calculate or estimate the cost of support (or value of payments)

Step 4: Applying labels

Use FSE labels to identify the key characteristics of each support policy. For each policy, a label must be chosen for each of the seven key characteristics listed in Table 3. Only one label can be selected under each policy characteristic. This process is not necessary for policies involving fishers making payments to the government.

Table 3. FSE key characteristics and label definitions

Key policy characteristics

Small-scale

Specific recipients

Distant water exclusion

Fisheries-specific

Label to be selected (in bold) and definitions (only one option must be selected from the cell)

Yes: if support is only available – by regulation, contract or law – to vessels classified as small scale, as defined by the reporting country. The definition should be reported in the metadata (see Step 5) OR

No: otherwise (i.e. support is not targeted at small-scale recipients)

Yes: if support is only available – by regulation, contract or law – to a defined set of recipients other than all small-scale vessels (e.g. a specific fishery, fisheries meeting specific sustainability criteria, indigenous/reconciliation groups, recreational fishers). If the specific recipients are a sub-set of small-scale fisheries, both the ‘specific recipients’ and ‘small-scale labels’ should be set to ‘yes’. Definitions for the specific recipient group or eligibility criteria should be reported in the metadata OR

No: otherwise (i.e. support is not targeted at specific recipients)

Yes: if support explicitly excludes – by regulation, contract or law – distant-water operations, as defined by the reporting country (the definition should be reported in the metadata) OR

No: if support is available to distant-water fishing operations

Yes: if support is fisheries-specific, that is, only available to the fisheries sector, OR

No: if support is not specific to the fisheries sector

Emergency Yes: if support is provided to mitigate the impacts of a specific unforeseen event for a fixed period of time, OR

Climate-mitigation

Support mechanism

No: if support is not emergency in nature but part of a regular support policy

Yes: if the support is given with the objective of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from fishing

No: if the support is not motivated by climate mitigation objectives

Direct payment: if the support is given with a direct transfer to vessel owners, fishers, or fishing companies, OR

Tax concession: if the support consists of a tax reduction or exemption, OR

Concessional finance: if the support consists of preferential terms for access to finance (see Box 2), OR

Public financing: if the support consists of the provision of fisheries services and infrastructure

Example

A country has a specific policy of income support for indigenous communities operating small-scale coastal prawn fisheries. Payments are conditional on mangrove protection as a climate change mitigation measure. The labels for this policy would be as follows:

Step 5: Ensuring all the required information is reported correctly in the FSE questionnaire

Checking for completeness is a crucial part of the reporting process Thus, the final step is to ensure that the FSE questionnaire is complete and compiled correctly

Report the metadata as comprehensively as possible

The metadata refer to any source information or calculation details for each policy. Please include, where possible and relevant:

• Links to webpages or documents describing the policy.

• A short description of the policy, the context in which it was created, the objectives pursued and the name of the ministry or agency responsible for the policy

• A description of the method used to calculate or estimate the cost of support (or value of payments).

• Links to any data or complementary information used to apportion support across FSE categories or sectors

• A reference or link to the legal document specifying conditions to benefit from a policy (e.g. the document specifying who the beneficiaries are or the conditions to be eligible to support).

• A reference or link to the legal documents defining key terms, where relevant – for example a definition of ‘small-scale fishing’, if some support is only available to this fleet segment.

• Any comment on data quality, use or limitations, such as any potential discrepancies between the data and the provided definitions

Ensure the questionnaire is complete

There should be no empty cells within the time series (Table 4). That is, reported policies must not have any empty cells after the year in which they were introduced. If a policy resulted in no support (or no contribution by the sector) in a specific year, use a zero (0) to indicate this. This would also be the case when a policy comes to an end after a few years or when a policy is sporadic in nature and does not result in support to the sector every year (such as a disaster relief policy)

In the example below (Table 4), reporting for Policy A is incomplete for 2017 onwards, as there are empty cells after the introduction of the policy (in 2014). Reporting for Policy B is complete, as zeros indicate that no support was granted under Policy B in the corresponding years. Policy C (introduced in 2018) is also complete, as there are no empty cells after its introduction

Table 4. Examples of times series reported with and without missing data

Check and revise previously reported data where necessary

Each questionnaire is pre-filled by the OECD Secretariat using the data reported by a country in the previous data calls. When reporting, in addition to reporting the most recent year of data, it is also important to update or revise data reported in previous years as required For example, it may be necessary to:

• replace estimated values with official statistics

• update budgeted values with actual spend

• add policies that were previously overlooked

• re-allocate policies where a lack of information had previously resulted in them being misallocated or allocated to the ‘S17 – Other support’ category

4 Definition and guidance for each FSE category

This section provides detailed information on each of the FSE categories (listed in Table 1), starting with the support categories (S01 to S17), and followed by the payment categories (P01 to P03). The descriptions include “real life” examples of support policies included in each category, as well as notes and guidance on specific reporting challenges.

Support categories

S01. Support to vessel construction or purchase

Support that reduces the costs of constructing or purchasing a vessel (new or second-hand) through:

• Direct payments to the vessel owner

• Tax concessions, e.g. on import taxes for vessels, or value added taxes (VAT) in the form of:

o tax exemptions

o reduced tax rates

o rebates on taxes paid, provided ex post

• Preferential finance – such as with preferential loan rates, loan guarantees, or interest rebates. Examples

• A policy allowing the tax-free import of fishing vessels.

• A policy exempting (or reducing) taxes relating to the purchase or construction of distant-water fishing vessels

• A policy providing young fishers with preferential loan rates for the purchase of their first vessel (be this new or second-hand; shared or full ownership).

• A policy providing below market, or interest-free, loans for the purchase of commercial fishing vessels.

• A policy allowing the accelerated depreciation of fishing vessels

Reporting tips

• Policies may be specific to certain age groups (e.g. young fishers) or fisheries (e.g. distant water). These specificities should be reported using the relevant labels (e.g. “recipient”; Step 4) and in the metadata to allow for accurate policy impact evaluation.

• In some cases a single policy can allow for vessel construction or purchase and modernisation (i.e. improvements to an existing vessel). This could be the case for example for policies that allow tax exemptions on income that is re-invested in vessels. Where this is the case, the value of support should be split between support to vessel construction and purchase (S01) and

vessel modernisation and gear purchase (S02) as appropriate, and using estimates if necessary.

S02. Support to vessel modernisation and purchase of gear

Support that reduces the costs of modernising vessels and gear, including the purchase of new gear equipment, electronics, or quotas, licenses and access to domestic resources through:

• Direct payments to vessel owners or fishers

• Tax concessions (e.g. on import taxes for vessel parts and equipment) in the form of:

o tax exemptions

o reduced tax rates

o rebates on taxes paid, provided ex post

• Preferential finance – such as with preferential loan rates, loan guarantees, or interest rebates.

Examples

• A policy that provides financing under preferential terms for equipment and modernisation of fishing vessels older than five years, aiming at improving safety on board, working conditions, hygiene, product quality, energy efficiency and selectivity.

• A policy that provides payments to vessel owners to switch from diesel to alternative fuel

• A policy that provides for the installation of vessel monitoring systems (VMS)

• A policy that provides financing under preferential terms to purchase a fishing quota.

Reporting tips

• Modernisation applies to all aspects of fishing vessels including gear and engines, and covers all types of investment on board, including engine replacement, restructuring of the hull, refrigeration and storage, electronics, safety equipment, facilities for the crew and compliance with national or international fishery related-measures

• Support to modernisation can target different goals such as improving on-board safety, working conditions, hygiene, product quality, productivity, selectivity, environmental performance or reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions

• Data reporters are encouraged to include descriptions of the modernisation financed in the metadata. Of particular interest would be information on modernisation that relates to safety or GHG emissions reductions. The latter should be signalled using the dedicated label ‘climate related’ (see Step 5 in Chapter 3).

• Support for research and development of improved gear, vessels or capital assets should be reported under S15 ‘Research and development (other than stock assessment)’.

S03. Support for fuel consumption

Policies that reduce fuel costs for fishing through:

• Direct payments to fishers or vessel owners. They may be delivered based on the quantity of fuel consumed or as a lump sum unrelated to actual fuel consumption

• Tax concessions on fuel-related taxes such as value added taxes (VAT), excise taxes and environmental (e.g. carbon) taxes, in the form of:

o tax exemptions

o reduced tax rates

o rebates on taxes paid, provided ex post

Examples

• A policy that periodically provides fishers with lump sum payments to reduce the cost of, or compensate them for, fuel purchases (e.g. diesel, gasoline). The size of the payment may or may not be determined by the physical size of the vessel, the fishing gear it employs, or other criteria.

• A policy providing fishers with permits for buying, or accessing, motor fuels exempt from excise from tax and customs

• A policy that results in foregone government revenues due to fuel taxes being either not applied or applied at reduced rates for fishers.

• A policy that provides fisheries with rebates on fuel taxes after the fuel has been purchased.

Reporting tips

• Much of the support to fuel use in fisheries comes in the form of tax concessions (reductions or exemptions). The revenue foregone due to this type of support may not be calculated or reported in administrative records, in which case the value of support will need to be calculated or estimated.

• One exception is where rebates are provided ex post (i.e. in the form of payments after having paid the full tax upon purchase). The value of these can often be sourced from tax agencies or other government bodies.

• One approach for calculating revenue foregone when it is not available from government records is to estimate the price reduction provided by the tax concession (its unit value) and multiply this by the quantity of fuel consumed by fisheries.

• The total value of fuel tax concessions may be a combination of both rebates and revenue foregone, but each programme should be individually reported within the FSE questionnaire. In such cases rebates and revenue foregone should be reported on separate lines.

• In some cases, support to fuel in the form of FTCs is not specific to the fisheries sector. It may also apply to a few other sectors, such as agriculture and aquaculture (without, however, applying throughout the whole economy). Reporting of this type of non-specific support is not mandatory within the FSE but it is strongly encouraged as it provides a more complete understanding of the policies influencing fisheries.

S04. Support for access to infrastructure

Policies that support access to fishing and fishing-related infrastructure through:

• Direct payments that compensate fishers for part of the cost of using infrastructure (both public and privately owned) necessary for their operations.

• Covering the operating costs of publicly owned infrastructure.

Examples

• A policy that reimburses fishers for a portion of the cost of accessing privately owned unloading facilities.

• A policy that reduces freight costs for fishers in isolated regions

• The cost to public finances of operating a publicly owned port.

• A policy that grants access to publicly financed infrastructure – e.g. ports or meteorology services – at a preferential rate for the fisheries sector

Reporting tips

• Part (or all) of the cost of operating publicly owned or operated infrastructure might be recovered through user charges, which need to be reported as ‘payment for access to infrastructure’ (FSE category P2). The full cost of operating public infrastructure should thus be reported under S04, and all recovery charges under P2.

S05. Support to infrastructure construction and modernisation

Policies that fund or reduce the cost of constructing and modernising fishery-related infrastructure. This may include, for example, support to build port facilities for commercial fishers, landing sites, auction halls, shelters, fisheries enhancement expenditure, training centres for fishers, marine fishing passage and safety equipment construction, facilities for waste and marine litter collection

Examples

• A policy providing funds to construct fishing port infrastructure to receive and store marine products, including ice-making and storage facilities in port.

• A policy funding the installation and maintenance of fishing harbour mooring sites and navigational aids.

• A policy funding the renovation of fishing ports, landing sites, and auction hall investments to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements for landing fish.

• A policy funding the construction of infrastructure to enhance fishing performance, such as fish aggregating devices (FADs), or other infrastructure, such as artificial reefs.

Reporting tips

• Typically, in addition to coming from funds administered by fisheries authorities, this type of support might also come from regional development funds

S06. Access to other countries’ waters

Policies that make it possible for vessels to fish in other countries' waters, through:

• Government-to-government payments for the right of access to fish resources in the economic exclusive zone (EEZ) of a third country

• Preferential finance granted to fishing companies for the purpose of paying for the right of access to fish resources of a third country’s EEZ.

Example

• A policy that pays the government of a third country so that specific fishing vessels may fish within the waters of that country and catch a specified quantity of fish, potentially with scope for additional catches on the basis of further payments.

Reporting tips

• Long-distance fleets sometimes operate in the EEZs of foreign countries based on bilateral access agreements. These agreements are often facilitated by governments, sometimes with government support to pay for access. This can also be complemented by private payments from the sector. Only the portion of payments for access to foreign waters funded by public money should be reported under S06

• Modalities for government support to access foreign waters vary across countries and across agreements. Sometimes, payments are made directly by public authorities to the governments of partner countries and economies. In other instances, concessional support is provided in

the form of preferential loans granted to fishing companies, who then make payments to access foreign waters. The latter type of support may be used more widely in countries or economies where the signatories of the bilateral access agreements are non-governmental entities. If concessional support is provided to fishing companies for this specific purpose, this should also be reported under S06

S07. Income support

Policies that support fishers’ income or revenue through:

• Direct payments to fishers and vessel owners – including in relation to disaster relief, changes in fishing seasons, policies targeting particular social groups and price support payments.

• Income tax concessions in the form of:

o tax exemptions

o reduced tax rates

o rebates on taxes paid, being provided ex post

Examples

• Grants to small fisheries

• Direct aid to participants in particular fisheries

• Grants for the temporary withdrawal of fishing vessels

• Compensation payments for closed or reduced fishing seasons

• A policy that compensates fishers for damage to catches caused by mammals and birds.

• Disaster relief payments

• Retirement grants for fishers

• Income guarantee compensation

• Grants for retraining of fishers into other activities

• Vacation support payments

• Grants to set up temporary or permanent joint ventures

• Income tax deductions for fishers operating in other countries

• A policy that provides vessel owners with direct financial payments when there are temporary cessations of fishing activities

• A policy that provides fishers with direct payments to maintain a minimum level of income if the fishery encounters difficulties.

Reporting tips

• Governments may support fisher incomes directly (potentially including crew, vessel owners, or other beneficial owners) by providing payments that ensure certain levels of income, or to mitigate the impacts of other (natural or management related) events on incomes. By taking these actions, a government is essentially insuring (underwriting) incomes. However, where governments make payments that subsidise premiums paid to private insurers, these are not income support and should be reported under S08 (Preferential insurance) To summarise, if the government acts as the insurer, support should be reported under S07. If the government subsidises premiums paid to private insurers, support should be reported under S08

S08. Preferential insurance

Policies that reduce the cost of insurance for fishers and vessel owners through:

• Direct payments to fishers and vessel owners to compensate for, or reduce the cost of, insurance

• Direct payments to private insurers to compensate for the cost of offering preferential insurance to fishers and vessel owners

• Preferential conditions for public scheme insurance or reduced contribution obligations (e.g. for health systems and pensions)

Examples

• A policy to reduce employers' social security contributions

• A policy to provide health insurance and pension schemes with preferential conditions or rates

• A policy to reduce fishing vessel or employee insurance payments.

• A policy that allows fishers to defer the payment of health insurance contributions.

• A policy that makes payments to cover a fixed share of premiums for personal injury insurance for marine fishermen and a fixed share of insurance premiums for marine fishing vessels

S09. Buyback of vessel and licence

Policies that aim to reduce fishing capacity by removing vessels and licences from a fishery typically used when a fishery is believed to be in a situation of over-capacity, which is threatening biological or economic sustainability with the objective to remove capacity at the fleet level to the point where it is balanced with the resource being fished. They can involve:

• Direct payments for vessel decommissioning and publicly funded buyouts of licenses and quotas

• Preferential retirement conditions

Examples

• A time-limited policy that allows the government to purchase active fishing vessels (for scrapping) and fishing rights (to be withdrawn) from their owners in a specific fishery.

• A time-limited policy that provides the owners of fishing businesses with payments and access to retraining for early retirement from the fishing industry.

• A time-limited policy that provides a lump sum payment to fishers for leaving the fishing industry on the condition they do not re-enter it.

S10. Support for education and training

Policies that provide education and training (including advisory services) in the fishery sector to acquire or develop the skills necessary for fishing and operating a fishing business through:

• Direct payments to fishers and vessel owners to cover the cost of education and training.

• Publicly funded education and training programmes.

Examples

• A policy that provides new entrants to the fishing industry with free or discounted access to safety-at-sea and navigation training.

• A policy that provides fishing vessel owners with education development.

• A policy that disseminates information on regulations, or changes to these, to fishers and fishing business owners.

• A policy that provides fishers with free or discounted access to business plan development and marketing strategy training

• A policy that provides vessel owners with free or discounted access to energy efficiency audits

Reporting tips

• Care should be taken to ensure that all educational and training programmes are captured within this category and that the topic of a programme does not result in it being reported in another category. For example, dissemination campaigns aimed at combating illegal fishing have previously been reported under enforcement expenditures, but should be reported under education and training.

S11. Support for environmental maintenance

Policies that compensate vessel owners and fishers through direct payments for undertaking actions that benefit the environment.

Examples

• A policy that provides payments to fishers and vessels owners when they collect and retain marine debris caught in the process of normal fishing activities.

• A policy that provides vessel owners with payments if they hand in their old nets when purchasing new ones.

S12. Marketing and promotion

Policies supporting the marketing and promotion of fish products, notably by encouraging the consumption of fish products, and promoting fisheries food-quality schemes, through:

• Direct payments to fishers.

• Government-funded programmes.

Examples

• A policy that provides funding for fisheries to obtain sustainability certification (such as via the Marine Stewardship Council).

• A policy that finances investments in downstream activities designed to improve the marketing environment for fisheries (such as campaigns to promote the consumption of under-utilised fish species)

• A policy that provides fishers and fishing companies with payments to cover their participation in international trade fairs.

• A policy that finances a marketing campaign for national agricultural and fisheries products (here only the resources allocated to promoting fisheries products should be reported)

Reporting tips

• Such support does not include public expenditure related to export subsidies, market withdrawals or intervention purchases.

S13. Support to research and development (other than stock assessment – see S14)

Policies financing research and development to improve fishing practices and related ecosystem research, excluding stock assessment, through:

• Direct payments to fishers and vessel owners

• Government-funded programmes.

Examples

• A policy funding research into the development of more efficient fishing gear (such as gear with greater selectivity of catch, or lower CO2 emissions).

• A policy funding the development of less-wasteful on-board processing techniques and storage that ensures a higher quality product.

• A policy funding the development of alternative fuel sources or modes of propulsion for fishing vessels.

• Research and development of technological processes for forecasting fishing grounds for capturing tuna

• Research into fishery enhancements and stocking programmes

Reporting tips

• Government-funded policies should be included irrespective of (1) the institution conducting the research (private or public, ministry, university, research centre or fisher group); (2) where they take place; (3) the nature of the research (scientific, institutional); or (4) its purpose. If work is co-funded by government then only the government contribution should be reported.

• The focus is on R&D expenditures on applied research related to the fisheries sector. This can also include social science research related to fisheries; and data dissemination when associated primarily with research and development (knowledge generation), e.g. reports from research and databases developed as an adjunct to research.

• R&D for stock assessment should be reported under S14.

S14. Stock assessment

Government funding of stock assessments carried out by government entities or third parties. This may include regular or ad hoc data collection programmes for the purpose of stock assessment.

Examples

• The cost of government resources involved in stock assessment activities, including operation and maintenance of fishery research vessels, salaries of fisheries scientists and spending on data collection from fishers

• Annual budget for the provision of stock assessment services by third parties (e.g. consultants or universities)

• Payments to multilateral fisheries organisations (e.g. ICES, RMFOs) for stock assessment, or in-kind contributions to these organisations (e.g. staff time) to undertake stock assessments

Reporting tips

• Industry funded stock assessments should not be reported to the FSE

S15. Monitoring, control and surveillance

Policies financing the enforcement of fisheries management measures through monitoring, control and surveillance. This includes the control of fishing operations both at port and at sea; regulation of vessel registration, licences, harvest, landings and use of gear; and enforcing seasonal closures or similar.

Examples

• The cost of fishery agency patrol, military or coast guard activities associated with the monitoring, control or surveillance of fishing vessels (including vessel operation, maintenance costs, and salaries)

• Budget for the development of activities such as inspection and control of fisheries and aquaculture resources at national level (only fisheries component to be reported).

• Operation of satellite-based system for observing fishing vessels, fishing areas and resources.

• Replacement of Fisheries Offshore Patrol Vessel, or their depreciation as a recurrent annual cost

• Budget for developing an Electronic Reporting System of fishing related data.

Reporting tips

• Care should be taken to identify and report the fishery relevant government-funded costs of entities in charge of surveillance in ports and at sea (such as the coast guard), including for international entities such regional fisheries management organisations (RFMOs).

• Only the relevant portion of a budget should be reported. In the case of the coast guard, only the budget allocated for fisheries-specific activities should be reported. Where data are not available, estimations could be based on the proportion of time spent controlling fishers versus other activities.

S16. Fisheries management

Policies financing management activities to improve the productivity or ensure the sustainability of fish stocks, including expenditures associated with developing, administering, adjusting, and adding to fishery management systems, stock recovery plans and stock enhancement programmes

Examples

• Management expenditure by the Fisheries Management Authority, such as expenditures on monitoring fishing licences, permits, vessel numbers and catch returns; the cost of implementing new, and administering existing, input and output controls (including annual TAC setting processes); expenditures on information collection and analysis, payments to support community-based management, expenditure to support international fisheries co-operation (such as RMFOs – but excluding any costs relating to stock assessment), funding of information dissemination, payments to cover the cost of producer organisations’ participation in fisheries management, support to improve the management of cooperatives.

• This category also includes the cost of developing and administering stock rebuilding programmes, expenditures for the development of protected marine areas when done for stock enhancement purposes, support for artificial reefs, programmes to release cultured juveniles into wild populations (e.g. to restore severely depleted spawning biomass, to augment the natural supply of juveniles, to ensure the survival of stocks threatened by extinction, etc.). Also includes expenditure on pest and disease programmes if implementation has a positive impact on wild fish stocks that are commercially exploited.

• Spending on support to systems for allocating fishing opportunities.

• Department of the Environment budget to permit harvest fisheries.

• Funding to produce a report identifying nations whose vessels are engaging in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing to open the way for continued consultations with government officials of these nations to take corrective action to stop IUU fishing.

• A bycatch management policy that funds bycatch identification, consultation and certification procedures, and collection of data to support the identification, consultation, and certification actions with nationals engaged in IUU/bycatch activities and governing Regional Fishery Management Organisations.

• A policy funding fishery habitat conservation and rebuilding

• A policy funding the production and stocking of fisheries with juveniles.

Reporting tips

• Management expenditures predominantly originate from activities associated with adjusting management settings within an existing management system, recommending amendments or additions to the system, and administering the existing system

• If management is administered by a unit in the main government agency, the wages of all employees working specifically on these issues should be reported. However, if the management unit is operated as an independent entity, the entire budget of the independent entity should be reported. So for example this may include the budget of the Ministry of Fisheries excluding any costs relating to stock assessment or enhancement, and enforcement costs.

• The cost of fisheries science that is primarily for the purpose of stock assessments (i.e. that aim to set TACs and other parameters of fish management systems) should be reported under S14 ‘Stock assessment’.

• Management expenditures do not include payments such as those for the temporary cessation of fishing activities (which should be reported under S07 ‘Income support’)

S17. Other support

Policies supporting fisheries that do not fall under any of the other categories listed above. This notably includes policies that cover more than one type of support, and which cannot be disaggregated and allocated to the above categories in any way

Reporting tips

• All efforts should be made to obtain the information required to allow for an accurate classification of policies into one of the above categories.

• You are welcome to contact the OECD Fisheries Secretariat to consider reporting options before allocating policies to this FSE category.

Payment categories

P01. Payments for access to resources

Payments to public entities by fishers, vessel owners or foreign public entities to obtain access to a resource or to secure the right to exercise defined fishing and fishing activities. This notably includes registration and license fees; payments for purchasing or leasing fishing quotas from the government; as well as payments by foreign vessels for accessing domestic waters

Examples

• Total government receipts from payments relating to the annual renewal of commercial fishing licenses.

• Total government receipts resulting from the auctioning of quotas.

• Payments by foreign vessels (or their governments) to access domestic waters under specific conditions

Reporting tips

• Payments to purchase or lease quotas or licenses from other fishers, i.e. private entities, should not be reported in the FSE.

P02. Payments for access to infrastructure

Payment made to public entities by fishers and vessel owners to access publicly owned infrastructure, such as ports or storage

Example

• Total government receipts arising from rates and charges imposed on fishers for use of stateowned and operated Fishery Harbour Centres.

Reporting tips

• Only payments made to access publicly owned infrastructure should be reported.

P03. Other fisheries-specific payments

Other fisheries-related payments made by fishers and vessel owners, including taxes or fees levied to recover the cost of management or other publicly funded services, and taxes on fishing profits (postcorporate tax) or on the value or volume of landings

Examples

• Fees levied on fishers in proportion to their value of landings to recover management expenditures incurred by government.

• Charges to fishers for the provision of fisheries monitoring and enforcement services.

• Annual management fees charged per unit of quota owned to recover the costs of administering the quota system.

• Fishery resource rent tax, levied on post-corporate tax profits.

• Levy on the value of landings to finance education and training in the fisheries sector.

Reporting tips

• If fishers make payments to private industry bodies that undertake research or other work on their behalf, these payments should not be reported to the FSE.

• Penalties (e.g. fines in case of infraction) are not considered as payments made by the fisheries sector and should not be reported to the FSE.

Glossary

These definitions are provided for the sole purpose of clarifying discussion within this document and do not preclude how they may be defined elsewhere.

Aquaculture

The farming of aquatic organisms including fish, molluscs, crustaceans and aquatic plants. Farming implies some sort of intervention in the rearing process to enhance production, such as regular stocking, feeding, protection from predators, etc. Farming also implies individual or corporate ownership of the stock being cultivated, the planning, development and operation of aquaculture systems, sites, facilities and practices, and the production and transport.

Capture fisheries (See “fishing sector”)

Commercial fishing

Concessional finance

Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ)

The harvesting of fish, either in whole or in part, for sale, barter or trade.

Support granted by giving access to finance on preferential terms such as interest rates that are lower than market rates, longer repayment periods, longer grace periods or a combination of these preferential terms. Unlike most other support policies, which are typically provided by government entities themselves, concessional finance is often provided through governmentowned financial institutions, which act as intermediaries (Box 2).

A concept adopted at the Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (1982), whereby a coastal state assumes jurisdiction over the exploration and exploitation of marine resources in its adjacent section of the continental shelf, taken to be a band extending 200 miles from the shore.

Fishing sector (Sometimes also referred to as capture fisheries): actors and activities involved in the act of capture fishing (both marine and inland), as well as any operation in support of, or in preparation for it. This includes the landing, onboard packaging or processing, transhipping or transporting of fish that have not been previously landed at a port, as well as the provision of personnel, fuel, gear and other supplies at sea to fishing vessels. Vessels involved in fishing-related activities may include, but are not limited to, refrigerated transport vessels, supply vessels, reefer vessels (vessel receiving fish for their transport as frozen products), motherships (vessels providing supplies and services to fishing vessels), factory ships (vessel receiving fish for on-board processing), and fish carriers.

Inland fisheries

Inland waters

Interest concession

Licence (or permit)

Policy measure

Marine waters

Small-scale producers

Support

Tax concession

Any activity conducted to extract fish and other aquatic organisms from inland waters.

Lakes, rivers, brooks, streams, ponds, inland canals, dams, and other land-locked (usually freshwater) waters (such as the Caspian Sea, Aral Sea, etc.).

A reduction, compared with commercial interest rates, in the interest rate charged on a loan taken out. Such concessions are typically provided directly by a government agency or by a government grant to a lending bank (in the case of a commercial loan).

(Fishing) a document authorising the taking of fish according to the terms established by the regulating authority.

A regulatory, financial, fiscal, voluntary or information provision instrument applied by a government to implement a policy.

Oceans and seas, including adjacent saltwater areas

Producers operating at a small scale; term used to distinguish them from industrialised producers. The line separating small- and large- scale producers is context-specific. What is considered small-scale in one country or region may be considered largescale in another.

Refers to transfers from the government to an activity or sector. Support can include transfers from governments in the form of direct payments (e.g. subsidies), cost-reducing transfers (e.g. loan concessions) and general services (e.g. government funded marketing or research). In the FSE, “support” is understood as transfers from domestic governments to domestic fishers or fish processors (both marine and inland), arising from governments’ policies and may be budgetary or non-budgetary in nature.

A reduction in the amount of tax paid as a result of preferential conditions such as total exemption or a reduced rate