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Federal Fisheries Agency announced the second stage of the pollock program

RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Thursday, April 15, 2021, 20:30 (GMT + 9)

The issues of regulating pollock fishing and its commercialization were discussed at a meeting chaired by Ilya Shestakov, director of the Federal Fisheries Agency, in Vladivostok.

The meeting was attended by the Governor of Primorsky Territory, Oleg Kozhemyako, the Director of the All-Russian Fisheries and Oceanography Research Institute (VNIRO) Kirill Kolonchin, representatives of industrial science, regional offices and heads of the main pollock mining companies . The need for a long-term strategy for the rational use of pollock resources has been realized in relation to restrictions on exports to China, the main consumer of Russian pollock.

The volume of fish exports, according to preliminary data from Rosstat, in January-February 2021 fell by 41% - to 207 thousand tons, in monetary terms a drop of 30% - to $ 497.5 million. These figures clearly confirm the need for alternative measures. .

“Pollock is our main resource. We need to discuss how we will continue to regulate their reserves, what opportunities we will use to organize supplies, how we will process, what additional plants need to be built, where to build them, how to apply investment quotas. Of course, all of this is on the agenda this year, ” said Ilya Shestakov.

The head of the Federal Fisheries Agency said that a decision had been made on the additional allocation of investment quotas: in the Far East, 20% of investment quotas will be distributed from 2023, and for processing plants , possibly as of 2022.

“This gives us new opportunities to not depend on processing in China. We must create conditions under which all the haddock we catch is processed in the Far East. It will then be supplied to both the national market and Europe. For this we plan to develop our "Russian Fish" project. I hope that with the help of the mechanisms provided for the national project "Export", we can create a non-profit organization, within which the state will be ready to allocate money and in conditions of co-financing, with you, with companies, to directly promote Russian pollock in European markets and in China ”, - said Ilya Shestakov.

A modern fishing industry should appear in Russia, new factories are opened, new vessels with on-board processing are brought into the fishery. There are companies that already offer a quality cod product (haddock, cod, pollock) to the market for the final consumer in attractive packaging. It is obvious that the trend will strengthen. As part of the strategy for the development of the fishing complex until 2030, a comprehensive project "New Cod Industry" is envisaged. In world practice, the cod fishery segment (pollock, cod, haddock) is the most promising for added value creation. The experience of the US cod industry demonstrates the transformation process from extraction to production of final products over 30 years with an increase in value added per unit of resource extracted by more than 100%. The products of the cod species are in demand in the markets of the countries of the European Union, Great Britain, the United States and several Latin American countries. In the next 15 to 20 years, a promising new sales area will be the Chinese market, where there is a trend towards quality food.

The complex project "New Cod Industry" aims to eliminate intermediaries in the supply routes of Russian fishery products to important sales markets (the degree of dependence on imports of pollock fillets in Germany, France, Poland and other member states of the EU is 100%, Russia will account for at least 50%).

“Our consumer is not familiar with pollock products of this quality and lives by the stereotypes of the Soviet era. It is time to seriously consider the domestic market as a priority and start working systematically with the consumer to shape their preferences. Now, forward-thinking companies are doing this. The valuable haddock is a new trend in the consumer market,” said Ilya Shestakov.

At the same time, science offers moderate long-term prospects for pollock fisheries. Igor Melnikov, deputy director of the Pacific branch of VNIRO, spoke about monitoring the pollock stocks in the Okhotsk Sea, taking into account the results of the last winter fishing season. The scientist recalled that the pollock is a highly fluctuating species with an average lifespan, the productivity of which from adjacent generations can differ by an order of magnitude.

Source: Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo)

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