The Uruguayan Fishing Industry (1974- 2015)

Abstract

The present paper seeks to bring a long-term view of the Uruguayan fishing sector, attending to institutional, economic and biological variables that make up the activity. The period covered comprises four stages. A first stage of “take-off”, with exponential growth in economic and productive terms, fostered to a great extent by state intervention in promoting a new private sector. Starting in 1981, a set of intermediate stages are observed where the model reaches maturity and stagnation. Different types of politics are tried during this period to sustain the activity. Lastly, as of 2006, a pronounced drop in the main variables related to sector performance has been observed. This inverted U-shaped story highlights the failure of a model promoted and planned in the 1970s, within the framework of a more general transition marked by the reformulation of the import substitution model in Uruguay.