Fish

Russian Seas Finally Protected by Parliamentary Law

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The Russian parliament has passed a long-awaited law to protect the country’s seas from oil pollution, after the voices of 120,000 Russians were presented to the government during Earth Hour’s I WILL IF YOU WILL campaign in 2012.

The rework included most of the crucial aspects needed to protect the natural environment of the seas from oil pollution, including the establishment of special conditions for extracting and transportation of hydrocarbons on the continental shelf, in the inner seawaters and in the territorial seas of Russia.

The law also widens responsibilities for operating companies to prevent oil spills, including conditions aimed to protect the seas from oil pollution.

Source: www.thefishsite.com

 

New Russian Clients for Food Certification International

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Food Certification International (FCI) has announced the certification against the Marine Stewardship Council Chain of Custody (MSC CoC) Standard, of 32 member companies of the Russian Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) for the Sea of Okhotsk Pollock fishery.

Established in 2006, the PCA leads the Russian Pollock Sustainability Alliance and aims to promote and implement improvements for the fishery. The PCA membership currently includes 45 fishing companies, operating almost 130 fishing vessels, located within the Russian Far East regions of Vladivostok, Sakhalin, Magadan and Kamchatka. This represents a very important step in the expansion of FCI into the Russian market.

Alexey Buglak, Executive Director of the PCA, commented: “The PCA member companies are highly interested in making buyers and consumers of Russian Pollock confident that Russian traceability system for fish products is robust, and our supply chain meets MSC Chain of Custody standard. We believe that FCI expertise and experience will support us in this.”

James Allan, Aquaculture Manager for FCI, said: “Our selection by PCA to carry out the initial pre-assessment and assessment inspections for their members is direct recognition of FCI’s knowledge and experience in aquaculture and fisheries certification.”

“We look forward to working closely with the PCA, and to providing on-going surveillance and certification for their members.”

Mr Allan added: “The range and scope of our fisheries, aquaculture and processing activities continues to grow. These clients, in addition to the two full and two pre-assessment fisheries currently being assessed for MSC certification in the Murmansk area, add significant value to our growing Russian client-base. This further enhances our company growth and continuing market share within the global certification sector.”

Source: www.thefishsite.com

Government Target Milk and Meat Production in Budget Increase

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Beef, Pork and Dairy farms in the Moscow region are to benefit from a subsidy boost of 60 million rubles in 2013, increasing the budget by 20 per cent to 3.6 billion rubles in a bid to support agricultural development, production modernisation and rural housing.

Current Moscow region funding structures grant a ‘pork budget’ of 19.4 million rubles and a ‘beef budget’ of 42.9 million rubles.

Prioritised by the Ministry of Agriculture and Food is Moscow’s dairy sector which is set to receive 504 million rubles from the regional budget and a further 414 million rubles from the federal budget.

The 2013 funding scheme is part of the “Development of agriculture and regulation of agricultural products, raw materials and food, Moscow Region for 2013-2020 years”, a policy started in August.

Additionally the regional subsidy for 2013 will support the production of fish and eggs as well as rural tourism, agricultural and suburban promotion of innovative projects.

Source: www.thefishsite.com

Russia’s Largest Sockeye Salmon Fishery Achieves MSC Certification

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The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) announced that the Ozernaya River sockeye fishery in southwest Kamchatka has been certified as a sustainable fishery and will receive the MSC ecolabel.

This is the first fishery from Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula to receive the MSC label and follows on the heels of two other certifications of Russian salmon fisheries: the Iturup Island pink and chum salmon fishery and northeast Sakhalin Island’s pink salmon fishery.

The Ozernaya sockeye fishery is operated by Vityaz Avto and Delta, two of the largest salmon fishing companies on the Kamchatka Peninsula. “We are proud to be the first fishing companies on Kamchatka to receive the MSC ecolabel. This certification demonstrates what we knew all along: this is a well-managed and sustainable fishery. We are determined to help it stay that way,” said Aleksandr Tarasov of Delta, Ltd.

Ozernaya sockeye is one of the few salmon runs in Russia that are almost entirely exported. The main market for Ozernaya sockeye is currently in Japan, but interest in the US and European markets is increasing, and a portion of the catch goes to these markets as well.

The Ozernaya MSC certification is the culmination of over three years of work by commercial fishermen in collaboration with the Wild Salmon Center (WSC) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF). The certification is another signal of the growing wave of Russian salmon fisheries engaging in the MSC assessment process. Currently 20% of Russia’s Pacific salmon fisheries are either MSC certified or in the MSC assessment process. Additional Russian fisheries are in the pipeline, underscoring the strong global demand for MSC certified salmon and Russia’s emerging significance in the global seafood marketplace.

“The Ozernaya sockeye fishery is one of the crown jewels of the global wild salmon fishery. While the fishery’s management isn’t perfect and there is more work to be done, the salient point is that this ecosystem needs to be protected and sustained. Like Bristol Bay in Alaska, the Ozernaya is a wild salmon ecosystem that is too important to lose,” said Brian Caouette of the Wild Salmon Center.

The headwaters of the Ozernaya Watershed are located in the protected Kuril Lake/South Kamchatka Nature Reserve, which safeguards critically important spawning and rearing grounds for wild salmon as well as habitat for grizzly bears, Steller’s sea eagles, and myriad other wildlife. The southwest Kamchatka coast, which includes the Ozernaya, is the most biodiversity-rich region for salmon in the world, including all seven species of Pacific salmon: Chinook, coho, sockeye, pink, chum, cherry salmon and steelhead.

The 1000-kilometer long Kamchatka Peninsula is located at the far eastern end of Russia, between the Sea of Okhotsk and the North Pacific Ocean. Kamchatka contains a vast network of rivers that remain free-flowing from headwaters to ocean and are virtually unaltered by human development. This region produces up to one-fourth of all wild Pacific salmon and 20% of Russia’s seafood.

Source: www.thefishsite.com

Russia to Revamp Fish Industry – Reduce Exports

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The Russian government plans to approve a new programme, The Concept of Fisheries 2012, which will significantly change the country’s fishing and aquaculture sectors, by reducing state control and increasing funds available to fish farms to produce higher value products.

At a meeting outlining the programme, Vice-Premier of Russia – Arkady Dvorkovich, said that Russia wanted to increase domestic production of fish products and export fewer raw materials abroad.

The new programme will abolish the VAT refund exporters recieve when exporting fish, as well as eliminate privileges on payment of the fee for the use of aquatic resources for companies that export raw materials abroad.

Another major innovation is to create fish stock exchanges, which will allow the state to control the price of fishery products and to fight the export-commodity nature of the fishing industry in Russia.

“In the current situation Russia is importing fish products of high added value, and exports from Russia only fresh or chilled fish, that is actually raw, losing significant amounts of value,” said the Chairman of the State Duma Committee on Natural Resources, Environment and Ecology, Vladimir Kashin.

There are also plans to support the coastal regions of the Russian Federation for the development of fisheries. The first such programme was adopted in the Sakhalin region and provides assistance to fishermen of $10.4 billion for the year. Similar programmes will soon be adopted in all the coastal regions of the country.

Source: www.thefishsite.com

Binding port state crab control treaty to be signed between Russia and Japan

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Russia is on the verge of taking another major step to control crab poaching, which is still two to three times the legal limit according to Hokkaido crab dealers. A treaty will be signed in September between Russia and Japan requiring separately transmitted documents from Russian officials for every crab landing in Japan. In the past, these measures have been effective when enforced by the Port state – in this case, Japan. Overall crab quotas in the Russian Far East are 46,000 tons, of which most is snow crab.

Another dispute involving Russia and Norway is building with the arrest of Russian vessels operating near Svalbard. Some Russian officials are threatening to retaliate with another ban on Norwegian seafood imports.

Source: www.seafoodnews.com

Russian Fish Processing To Adopt International Quality Standards

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Expected Russia’s joining the WTO cannot but affect its fishing industry. However, this will not force any significant changes into operation of coastal fishing companies, since they deliver their whole catch to domestic ports for its further processing or sale in domestic market. But for those Russian fishing companies that export their products to European countries the changes associated with entry into the WTO are crucial, and they shall prepare themselves to many new things.

It’s claimed that joining the WTO will enable Russian fishing companies to trade their products on equal terms with other EU countries. But the problem is that there are concerns related to lower competitiveness of domestic fish products since not all Russian products meet high European standards. Closely working with Russian fish suppliers that have relevant European certificates, I know that at many other enterprises certain EU regulations are not met. Many companies are not ready to introduce and adopt international standards, so it will take some time till they will be allowed to enter the European market with their products.

It is also worth noting that in order to gain from joining the WTO, Russian enterprises should increase volumes of deeply processed products, which will provide the biggest added value.

Source: www.superocean.net

Affect of Russia’s accession to the WTO on fish import duties

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Due to Russia’s accession to the WTO, nearly all categories of fish and seafood will see a reduction in tariffs, although reductions may not occur immediately with accession.

Frozen, fresh and chilled fish (excluding filets) will see reduced tariffs between 2013 and 2017. The pre-accession applied bound rate is currently 10 per cent; the final bound rate is expected to fall between eight and three per cent depending on species. For salmon and trout fillets, the final bound rate is expected to be four per cent by 2016, and for cod fillets, to five per cent by 2015.

Tariffs on frozen hake and pollock fillets will fall to seven per cent by 2014. For crustaceans, the tariff on whole lobsters will fall from 10 to only five per cent with this change occurring by 2015 for frozen and by 2016 for live lobsters. For non-whole frozen lobsters the tariff will fall from 10 to eight per cent by 2013.

For frozen shrimps and prawns, the current tariff will fall to between five and three per cent by 2014-2015 depending on variety. For frozen crabs, it will fall from 10 to five per cent by 2015-2016 depending on variety. For mollusks, the pre-accession applied/post-accession bound rate will fall to seven per cent by 2015 for oysters, for scallops to six per cent by 2015 and for mussels to five or six per cent by 2016-2017 depending on variety.

Source: www.thefishsite.com

The accession to the WTO and the Russian fishery industry

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As some experts say, the accession to the WTO will not change the total amount of fish and seafood on the Russian market. And fish consumption will continue to grow, as Andrej Krajnij, head of the Federal Fishery Agency, said during the parliamentary hearings in the State Duma on June 20. Four years ago, according to the Russian Statistics Service, the average fish consumption per capita was 12.7 kilos of fish, but the last year it was 22 kilos, and by 2020 it is expected to be 23.5 kilos.

Meanwhile, people involved in the fishery industry expect that the accession to the WTO may cause some serious problems. The deterioration of fishery fleet and the fact that there are almost no facilities for new fishery boats construction and repair of old ones and other factors put the Russian fishery industry in unequal conditions with fishermen from other countries, which are WTO members. Moreover, one of the main problems is the fact that the Russian fishing industry is limited by the imperfect legal system: unreasonable restrictions, outdated legal framework prevent the fishery sector from developing. And there are some assumptions that Russia’s accession to the WTO may even damage the whole fishery industry.

Nevertheless, it is only a forecast, now there are some government programs; their goals are to create good conditions for the development of the fishing industry as an important segment of the national economy of Russia after the WTO accession.

Source: www.frozen-products.ru

Russia’s fishing industry experiences steady growth

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According to Russian statistics, the fish processing sector of the Russian economy increased by 81.3 thousand tons of fish.

In 2011, due to further construction in the fish processing industry, the storage of fish and fish products was around 2.7 thousand tonnes. There is growing investment activity in the fishing industry. During the period from 2000 to 2011 capital investment in the fishing industry increased 3.5-fold (from 2.2 billion to 7.8 billion rubles).

During this period the average annual growth rate of investment in fixed assets amounted to 14.2 per cent (510 million).

Source: www.thefishsite.com