Tímarit Verkfræðingafélags Íslands - 01.12.1967, Page 31

TlMARIT VPl 1967
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stæður. Stefnan verður fyrst og fremst að fram-
kvæmast fyrir tilverknað þeirra beinu áhrifa,
sem stefnumörkunin hefur á aðgerðir opinberra
aðila, og þar með þeirra óbeinu áhrifa, sem hún
hefur á starfsemi í atvinnugreininni. Til viðbót-
ar þessu geta síðan komið bein áhrif á afstöðu
fyrirtækja og samtaka, sem leiða af náinni sam-
vinnu við þessa aðila í sambandi við mótun
stefnunnar. En engin stefnumótun, engin starf-
semi opinberra aðila, engin stofnun ráða, getur
nokkurn tíma komið í stað frumkvæðis og
ábyrgðar einstaklinga og fyrirtækja í atvinnu-
greininni sjálfri og samtaka þeirra. Hlutverk
stefnumótunar, eins og annarra opinberra að-
gerða á vettvangi atvinnulífsins, er að skapa
starfsemi þessara aðila þau skilyrði, er bezt
stuðla að hagkvæmum vinnubrögðum og skyn-
samlegum ákvörðunum þeirra sjálfra.
Summary
The fishing industry is the basic sector of
the Icelandic economy insofar as it provides
the major part of the country’s foreign exchange
earnings and has in this century led the
country’s rapid economic development. The
growth of the fishing industry has been
supported by the development of other related
industries, but the fishing industry is the only
industry in the country which has been able to
break through as a major export industry and
thus escape the limitations of the small domestic
market, utilize the advantages of production of
scale and through its own rapid development
induce the growth of other industries.
There has been a strong tendency to limit
the benefits the fishing industry itself could
reap from its access to the country’s richest
natural resource. In part, the growth of the
industry has automatically set in motion a
general increase in income, which has distributed
these benefits throughout the economy. In part,
deliberate efforts have been made to limit the
profits of the fishing industry and to protect
other industries, or branches within the fishing
industry itself, which have found it difficult to
compete with the fast growing branches of that
industry. These attempts have been considered
all the more justified in view of the fishing
industry’s dependance upon a limited natural
resource, which is furthermore subject to great
local and time variations.
Indirect methods, rather than direct, have
been used to distribute the benefits from the
exploitation of the fishing banks, to protect
other industries from the effect of the growth
of the fishing industry and to help create a
more diversified and stable economy. Instead of
levying a direct resource tax on the fishing
industry, a relatively low rate of exchange has
mostly been maintained and other industries
than the fishing industry have been compensated
for this through tariff protection and import
controls. In addition, subsidies have been granted
to specific industries, especially agriculture and,
at times, certain branches of the fishing industry.
The use of these methods has profoundly
affected the general direction the development
of the economy has taken. It has hampered the
growth of some industries closely connected
with the fishing industry, such as shipbuilding
and production of fishing gear, which other-
wise should have had relatively favourable
conditions of growth, but do not enjoy protection
of distance, nor have been granted tariff pro-
tection. Moreover, it has hampered the growth
of those branches of the fishing industry itself
which are beyond the primary processing of
the raw material, and thus do not benefit
directly from the easy access to the fishing
banks. It has, on the other hand, promoted agri-
cultural production and a diversified industrial
production, mainly of consumer goods.
The information available on the present and
prospective magnitude of the main fish species
caught in Icelandic waters, does not indicate
that the development of the economy will in
the future be able to depend to the same extent
as before on the growth of fishing and primary
processing. This is bound to influence greatly the
direction of general economic policy, and has,
to a certain extent, already done so.
It has been generally considered that the
secondary processing of fish products could
take over the leading role in economic growth
heretofore played by fishing and primary
processing. This view is supported by reference
to the relatively low grade of processing of most
Icelandic export products. It is hardly fully
realized, however, that the secondary processing
of fish products does not, in general, enjoy the
special advantages that fishing and primary
processing have derived from the easy access
to the fishing banks. It is, on the whole, difficult
to perceive, why secondary processing of fish
products should be more advantageous in Ice-
land than a number of other pursuits unrelated
to the fishing industry. Whether this is so can
only be decided by experience after approxi-