Global fisheries suffer from severe overfishing: around 60 percent of assessed fish stocks are fully exploited and 30 percent are already overexploited. Despite this, around US$35 billion per year are disbursed as subsidies to the sector; around US$20 billion in forms that tend to enhance fishing capacity. There is strong evidence from economic modelling and case studies that subsidies to fishing can create incentives for over-capitalisation of the industry and for unsustainable levels of fishing. Reducing or reforming subsidies to the fishing industry is therefore necessary to remove the policies’ distorting effects that incentivise overcapacity and overfishing. The ICTSD policy brief Advancing Multilateral Trade Negotiations on Fisheries Subsidies outlines available options for reforming the subsidies provided to fishing in the context of ongoing World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations on fisheries subsidies.