Fish imports to Russia are steadily declining this year, which means that the country is succeeding in the process of fish imports’ substitution. In April this year vis-à-vis March, imports of chilled and frozen fish declined by 24.4 per cent to USD 171 million. For April 2012 compared to April 2011, they were down 18.9 per cent.
The decline was due to lower imports of trout and mackerel. For the period of January-March 2012, frozen trout imports were down 39.6 per cent to 2,900 tonnes; frozen mackerel declined 47.5 per cent to 13,600 tonnes. For the same period, imports of frozen capelin were up 3.2 times to 37,500 tonnes; sprats up 37.3 per cent to 16,900 tonnes; and whiting by 14,100 tonnes. While imports of herring fillets were up 11.2 per cent to 11,900 tonnes, imports of Chinese tilapia and Vietnamese pangasius declined 36.6 per cent to 4,000 tonnes; and surimi by 14.8 per cent to 4,600 tonnes.
According to the Federal Agency for Fisheries, last year total Russian fish catch amounted to 4.225 million tons of fish and seafood, which is 197,000 tons (4.9 per cent) more than in 2010. Since 2008, the volume of the Russian fish catch is growing annually by about 300 thousand tons per year.
At the same time, according to analysts of the Fishretail, one of Russia’s leading magazines in the field of fishery, despite the currently observing imports’ decline, Russia still heavily depends on fish supplies from abroad.
Source: www.thefishsite.com