The Problems and Tasks of Public Loan Programs in Fishery Industry

수산 정책자금의 현황과 과제

A number of public loans with lower interests and other tax benefits have been provided for farmers and fishermen. However, much of those loans have been accumulated as non-performing. The result is that a large part of fisheries debts are now on the verge of default, Those loans, that fail to pay interests, keep rapidly growing like a time bomb. Now something has to be done before it burst. Firstly, the government must clean up the debts caused by government's mismanagement in the past. The past debt must be repaid or written off by the government since its guarantee was committed several times in guidelines regarding public loans. As such a measure, the government can greatly enlarge its capital contribution to the Credit Guarantee Fund for Farmers and Fishermen and Loss Guarantee fund for Policy Loan. It would greatly help to compensate local branches of fisheries cooperatives for their loss incurred from carrying public loans. In the past, the government used to roll over old debts of fishermen with new debts whenever maturity came. It ends up growing the size of non - performing loans. For this reason, it is not delay of the debt payment, but its write - off that fishery society needs a lot. Secondly, the loan authorities must lower overall risk in providing public loans for fishermen in the future. The whole process must be thoroughly reviewed and changed to provide and manage government loans. To facilitate this, fisheries cooperative must stop being just a public agent, rather take a bigger responsibility in selecting, and checking loan beneficiaries, and securing debt repayment. Incentives must be arranged properly enough to induce fisheries cooperatives to treat public loans just like their own business. Finally, the so - called 'special account of policy loan in fisheries industry' must be set up to enhance the transparency and to check the performance of public loans programs.