원양어업의 전자모니터링 도입에 따른 경제적 영향에 관한 연구

A Study on the Economic Impacts of the Introduction of Electronic Monitoring of Distant-water Fisheries

As digital technologies, represented by the Internet, IT, and the 4th industrial revolution, continue to develop and spread, their influence on the economy and industry of our society is rapidly expanding. An economy based on these advanced digital technologies is called the ‘digital economy’. In the digital economy, digital technology has economic effects of sharply lowering various kinds of economic costs. As various “costs” can be reduced based on digital technology, the movement to utilize digital technology in the sustainability sector is also in full swing in the distant-water fisheries. The technology that foretells epochal changes related to the digital economy in distant-water fisheries is the Electronic Monitoring (EM). Through EM, the traceability of distant-water fisheries can be strengthened, and functions such as catch, fishing-effort, and compliance check can be performed by analyzing monitoring images. Accordingly, the international community is actively discussing the adoption of relevant international standards for the introduction of EM in distant-water fisheries, centered on the WCPFC and the IATTC. Especially, the IATTC proposed the EM application time as 2025. Considering that more than half of Korean distant-water fishing vessels are mostly the type of tuna longline or purse seine operating in the Pacific Ocean, this trend of discussion in the international community is expected to have a direct impact on the domestic industry. Therefore, this study tried to understand the background and progress of the discussion on the introduction of EM for distant-water fishing vessels operating in the high seas and waters under the jurisdiction of RFMO, and to analyze the economic benefits expected when introducing EM. Through this, the justification for the introduction of EM in the domestic distant-water fisheries and future policy directions were presented.