Speaking at Tuesday’s meeting in Petropavlovsk on measures to advance Russia’s fishing industry, Vladimir Putin highlighted the need to scrap customs clearance requirements for fish being brought into Russia.
Ever since the break-up of the Soviet Union two decades ago, Russia’s fishing industry has been struggling with the fact that the trawlers find it more economical profitable to reload the fish directly to transport vessels in open ocean instead of landing the fish in ports like Murmansk.
Also, much of the cod catch from Russian trawlers in the Barents Sea has been landed in ports in Northern Norway. To counter this development, the Russian government has initiated several measurements to remove the excessive administrative barriers in order to lure their trawlers to deliver the catch in domestic harbors.
Currently, the fishermen are supposed to send a notification 34 days in advance, then spend a couple of days on their vessel waiting for inspectors to arrive; afterwards they proceed to the shore to submit more paperwork to the relevant agency. The alternative is to reload the fish to a foreign transport vessel in international waters or to deliver the fish simply onshore in Northern Norway without lining up for weeks in a bureaucratic and expensive line.
In April this year, Vladimir Putin chaired a meeting in Murmansk on development of shoreline infrastructure for intake, processing, storage and transport of fish products. At the meeting, the first steps to abolish customs clearance for fish products were discussed.
Vladimir Putin followed up the customs clearance question at yesterday’s meeting.
- Indeed, it’s not fair that fishermen catching fish in our exclusive economic zone should be obligated to pay customs duty as if they were importing something. It’s nonsensical. I totally agree that it should be scrapped, Putin said at the meeting according to the transcript posted at the Prime Minister’s web-portal.
Putin also said the government has issued a resolution to expand the coastal fishing area in the Barents Sea.
