Russian Fishery Company excluded from the Pollock Catchers Association

Gleb Frank's 'Russian Fishery Company' is no longer a comrade for pollock workers

RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Thursday, September 17, 2020, 05:00 (GMT + 9)

Attempts to add fish quotas to themselves led to the exclusion of the RRPK from the authoritative Association of Pollock Catchers

The general meeting of the participants of the Far Eastern Pollock Catchers Association (PCA) on Tuesday, September 15, by a majority vote expelled from the business association six fishing companies that are part of the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) group owned by Gleb Frank. The exclusion of the Frank holding from the reputable industry association not only in Russia, but also in the world market was preceded by the next initiatives of the RFC on the revolutionary reform of the country's fishing industry, sent to Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin in July this year. The fishing community was outraged by the fact that the text of the document was not discussed with market participants.

In her letter, the RFC, in particular, convinced the prime minister that the fishing industry is stagnating, the fishing fleet is not being updated, and products of deep processing are practically not produced. In this regard, it was proposed to take away half of the quotas for the production of pollock and herring from most of the existing fishing enterprises and transfer these resources to those companies that in 2018 received the right to investment quotas. The main addition of quotas in this situation would go to the RRPK itself, since the holding has announced itself for the construction of 10 super trawlers for investment quotas (although none have been built yet). As a result, the proposals of the RFC received negative reviews in the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and the Federal Agency for Fishery, the largest business associations of the country - the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, "Opora Rossii", the Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the fishing community also opposed.

As reported in the Pollock Catchers Association (PCA), the issue of discussing the initiatives of the Russian Fishery Company was included in the agenda of the General Meeting of PCA participants on September 15. Prior to this, the Association did not come forward with its assessment of the initiatives, since it did not consider it possible without a general discussion and development of a consolidated position. The results of the meeting were reported by the president of PCA Alexey Buglak: “Today the enterprises-members of the Association discussed the proposals of the leadership of the RFC, the issue was included in the agenda in advance, about which all members of the PCA were informed in advance. During the discussion, for consideration of the meeting, a proposal was received from a number of participants to exclude six companies from the RFC group from the Association. Grounds - violation of clause 3.6 of the Association Charter.

In accordance with the Charter of the Pollock Catchers Association, "any member of the association may be expelled from its membership for committing actions that contradict the goals and (or) objectives of the association." Clause 2.1 of the charter refers to the main goals of the association as "providing economic and legal guarantees for the activities of fishery enterprises." The proposal of the leadership of the RFC to reduce the volume of industrial and coastal quotas will inevitably lead to the withdrawal of a significant part of the resources from PCA member enterprises.

The members of the association also criticized the text of the letter to Mishustin, pointing out, in particular, that allegations that Russian fishermen allegedly do not want to produce highly processed fish products do not correspond to reality. At the same time, a number of PCA participants already produce more advanced processing products than RFC enterprises. The industry community also believes that the “investment quotas” program has already shown its effectiveness as an incorrect argument in favor of yet another redistribution in the fishing industry.

"It is difficult to judge the effectiveness of something that does not yet exist. New vessels - except for three medium-tonnage vessels for the Kamchatka Republic of Kazakhstan named after VI Lenin - have not yet been commissioned. In any case, only time will tell what is effective and what is simply done to redistribute quotas", one of the PCA participants shared his vision.

At the same time, in the zone of special risk are small and medium-sized companies, as well as city-forming enterprises, which in the Far East really "pull" the socio-economic situation in coastal villages.

The federal media have already reported that the Russian Fishery Company is going to challenge the decision of the General Meeting of PCA in the Federal Antimonopoly Service and in court.

Source: KP.ru

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