The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the factory’s claim to have the Government’s resolution to ban import of fish and other foodstuffs from Norway, EU, US and other countries, recognized as partly unlawful. Director of Murmansk Fish Combinat Mikhail Zub believes the Government’s resolution does not correspond to President Putin’s decree from August 7 on import ban when it comes to live fish. The claim was filed in September.
Witnessing before the court, Zub explained that his company used to process fish delivered to Murmansk by Norwegian fish carriers. Now his company would have to buy fish from Chile, which is a lot more expensive, RBC reports.
“Normally the price of salmon in Moscow should be 360-370 rubles per kilogram, but now it is more than 1200 rubles,” Zub said, and added that the buying price of salmon from Chile is almost 800 rubles.
When asked by the prosecutor why he doesn’t buy Russian fish, Zub explained that nearly 60 percent of all fish caught in Russian goes to export, particularly to China. Thus, according to the industrialist, annualy Russia produces about 3 million tons of fish, of which 1.8 million tons is sold abroad. As a result, less than 10 kilos per capita per year remains in the country.
The reason for the court’s dismissal of Murmansk Fish Combinat’s claim was that “this is not a question about the legality of the sanctions, but about their inexpediency and the profitability a cancel of them would have for the company.” The court underlined that the government’s resolution is in line with the decree of the President, who took restrictive measures in response to sanctions against Russia.
“Russia will soon be without any fish,” Zub told reporters when leaving the court building. Murmansk Fish Combinat will now be rebuild into a storage and sort facility for the Northern Sea Route.
