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Ban on fish import closes factory doors

Murmansk Fish Combinat is on of the ten largest fish processing companies in Russia.

One of Russia’s largest fish processing companies, Murmansk Fish Combinat has had to shut down because of lack of raw materials due to the ban on import of fish from Norway. The company threatens to sue the Government if problems aren’t solved.

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“Work has been discontinued, as shipments of live fish from Norwegian vessels stopped due to the sanctions”, the company’s manager Mikhail Zub says to ITAR-TASS. “We have written a letter to the Prime Minister, but have still not received any answer”. 

“If the problem is not solved soon, we will have to file a lawsuit against the Russian Government”, he said. 

Murmansk Fish Combinat is technologically only capable of processing live fish. Until Russia imposed sanctions on import of fish from Norway on August 7, the fish was brought to Murmansk by Norwegian fish carriers. In Russia this type of fishing is almost non-existent because of the technological backwardness of the domestic fishing fleet, Zub says. 

According to the Russian Fisheries Agency, there are only two fish carriers in Russia, ITAR-TASS writes. 

The fish processing plant in Murmansk had contracts with Norwegian exporters on 31,000 tons of cod, capelin, pollock, haddock and herring to be delivered in the last half of 2014.

«We are afraid that processing now will go to Belarus. Moreover, Norwegian companies are not affected by the sanctions, as they control 70 percent of the alternative route – Chile”, Zub claims. 

Murmansk Fish Combinat is one of the ten largest fish processing companies in Russia with a production capacity of 70.000 tons per year. In 2013 the company’s revenues rose 17,5 percent to 161,2 million rubles.