This year russian fishing industry will face serious changes. Russian fishermen have to fill the space on local shelves after the ban on the import of seafood.
In Rosrybolovstvo (Federal Agency for Fishery) can stimulate producers to sell the catch inside the country using administrative measures.
From 22 to 28 af April 2015 Rosrybolovstvo together with Moscow government for the first time hold in Moscow a “fish week”. The main idea is to turn russian buyers on the domestic fish and to bring together suppliers and sellers of fish products.
“For us it is important that local fish comes into the Russian market,” – said the head of Federal Agency for Fishery Ilya Shestakov.
This year generally the catch is just 4% higher than previous year, mainly because of good catch in Far East basin, in the Northern basing the situation is worse because of bad weather and the reduction of quotas for some species.
In previous years Russian fishermen has lost their positions in the Russian market and has been sending their catch to the export. And now the shelves are empty and Rosrybolovsto tries to turn the catch back inside the country.
The problem is not only the interest of fishermen – to sell more expensive – but also retailers are used to get large quantities of nice packaged imported fish that is able to compete for the buyer with the meat products. And there is also economic interest of transport companies that prefer to move the product that is paid more.
And now, after the ruble has lost its positions fishermen has more motivation to ship abroad to receive foreign currency. Domestic prices for fish increase following the foreign prices. But no one is interested in fact that food prices are rising too quickly.
The head of Federal Agency for Fishery doesn’t rule out the adoption of administrative measures to reduce the export of fish (such as increase of export duties on fish that will make it unprofitable).
In addition, this year Rosrybolovstvo promises to solve the problem with transportation. For certain types of fish they plan to introduce subsidies and reduce tariffs for transportation in refrigerated containers.