The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture 2020

particularly in the fishing communities that are 
home to these fleets and where the fleets operate. 
After reaching a peak number of fishing vessels 
in 2013, the fleet capacity of China has been 
steadily reduced. This decline in the number 
of vessels drives the trend for Asia, but also 
globally due to the large size of the Chinese 
fleet. Moreover, the European Union has been 
following a policy of reducing fleet capacity 
since 2000. The European region as a whole has 
the highest percentage of motorized vessels – 
99 percent of its fleet. The global total of 
motorized vessels has remained steady at an 
estimated 2.86 million vessels, or 63 percent of 
the total fleet. 
Figure 16
shows the proportion of motorized 
and non-motorized vessels by region. 
The figure shows each region’s relative share 
of the motorized and non-motorized vessels. 
Note that the totals sum to 100 percent across 
categories, not by region. The motorized fleet 
is distributed unevenly around the world 
(
Figure 17
), with Asia having almost 75 percent 
of the reported motorized fleet in 2018 
(2.1 million vessels), followed by Africa with 
about 280 000 motorized vessels. The largest 
absolute number of non-motorized vessels 
was in Asia, with more than 947 000 vessels 
estimated in 2018, followed by Africa (just 
over 643 000 non-motorized boats), Latin 
America and the Caribbean, Oceania, North 
America and Europe. These undecked vessels 
were mostly in the length overall (LOA) class 
of under 12 m and included the smallest boats 
used for fishing. The substantial proportion 
of unclassified vessels, both in terms of 
motorization status, but also as found for 
length categories and vessel types, points to 
the need to support further improvements in 
reporting granularity.
FIGURE 15
DISTRIBUTION OF MOTORIZED AND NON-MOTORIZED FISHING VESSELS BY REGION, 2018
ASIA
AFRICA
AMERICAS
EUROPE
OCEANIA
67.6%
20.3%
9.7%
0.3%
2.1%
SOURCE: FAO.