FISHERY RENT AND VALUE OF AQUATIC BIORESOURCES

Abstract

Fishery rent is assessed quantitatively for Russian Federation in 2014–2018. The annual rent value changed from 43 to 110 billion roubles, with the average amount of 88 billion roubles per year. On this basis, the net present value of non-cultivated aquatic living stocks is calculated using the data of official statistics, under assumption of 15 % return of capital. The fishery rent dynamics is determined mainly by the consumers demand (sales price) and the level of production cost. Other parameters, as the amount of capital, its profitability, etc., have smaller impact on the rent. Direct calculating of the aquatic living resources value using the data on total allowable catch (TAC) or commercial stock has large errors and uncertainty in contrast to the method of net present value that accounts the rental income. However, monetary valuation of aquatic living resources by this method requires a correct assessment of social discount rate because of its strong impact on the results of calculation. The social discount rate for Russian Federation varied in the 2014–2018 from 2.13 % to 3.73 % that is considered as a quite low level, typical for developed countries. Taking into account this correction, the value of non-cultivated aquatic living resources in Russian Federation is amounted as 1.4–4.7 trillion roubles in 2014–2018 that is considered as the minimal limit corresponded with an «ideal», undisturbed state of the system. In real, both value of fishery rent and value of fishery resources are affected by a number of officially unreported factors, such as discards and technological losses, which summary impact is assessed as 45 % of the fishery rent or 39 billion roubles per year, on average. Thus, the more realistic value of the non-cultivated aquatic living resources in Russia in 2014–2018 is 2.1–6.4 trillion roubles, on average 4.3 trillion roubles.