The country has an extensive coastline of 1 550 km, stretching from the strait of Bab al Mandab, joining the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, to the border of Oman facing the Arabian Sea. The continental shelf is relatively narrow, especially in the innermost part of the Gulf of Aden.
Fisheries have always been an important activity in People's Democratic Republic of Yemen, as detailed in Table 1. The total catches increased constantly to reach a maximum in 1977 with about 162 000 t. In 1978, catches were down by 30 000 t. This poor tendency was confirmed during the following year, 1979, with an even more dramatic drop in the landings. The official figures for 1979 are not published to date, but it might be important to consider the 1979 year catches as a minimum. This phenomenon seems to be mainly the result of ecological modifications in the waters of the main fishing grounds and specially abnormal current patterns. This sharp drop in catches was clearly observed for pelagic fish but also on demersal species, generating fish supply problems in the country. All vessels were similarly affected: National Fishing Corporation, Soviet, Japanese, coastal fishing, etc., except for the Soviet fleet for demersal fish.
Fishing activities are dependent on the seasons and are severely reduced from September to March, making the shortage worse by the end of 1979 and the beginning of 1980.
The fishing fleets consist of:
- fisheries cooperative vessels responsible for about half of the total catches;
- the vessels of the National Fish Meal Corp.;
- the National Fishing Corp. vessels, mainly large trawlers;
- the Soviet Union vessels;
- the Japanese vessels, trawlers from Nichiro and Hakodate companies.
Average consumption per caput is rather high in People's Democratic Republic of Yemen: 17.5 kg/caput/year. This figure must be qualified, in that in Aden and vicinity it reaches 35 kg/caput/year, while in the inner part of the country it might be close to zero on account of poor communications. Considerable efforts have been made to increase storage capacity and therefore an increase in consumption (beyond the 1977 basis) could result only from a general improvement in the communications and local market distribution in the whole country.
By the 1979 and early 1980 standards, the demand is very high.
Marketing was one of the main limiting factors till 1978. The production in 1979 has limited this problem to a lower rank. However, it will remain in the future a major obstacle unless efforts are carried out to improve the communications and markets in the inner parts of the country.
Landings in Aden will be considerably improved with the opening of a new fishing port and modern facilities being constructed by the Soviet Union. The cold storage capacity has been developed in the past years in almost all significant fishing villages along the coast and provides adequate means of preservation. Out of the total production in normal fishing years, at least 50 000 t are directly used for human consumption, while the remaining part is processed for export or for feed production.
From 1978 till 1980, production prices were fixed by the Government and were not enough incentive for fishermen. This might also have had some effects on total catches. Prices were fixed according to the species and qualities in five groups (Table 2). From the fall of 1979, this system has been modified and now only a three group system is in use. Furthermore, the cooperatives are allowed to sell 40 percent of their catches on the free market at 150 percent of the official prices. According to information gathered from fishermen near Mukalla, in April 1980 they were selling tunas and mullets (group I) at 0.5 D/kg and sardines (group III) at 0.2 D/kg 1.
