The Russian Government recently held a meeting to discuss challenges for the fisheries sector.
Amongst the measures the Government considers taking, is a temporary cancellation of customs charges on refrigerators and other equipment needed for processing and storage of fish and softening of the laws that make port calls to Russia difficult for foreign-built vessels.
Seven terminals and ports in Russia will be upgraded for all together 2 billion RUB, the Fisheries Commitee writes on its web site, with link to Interfax. Most of these ports are located in the eastern parts of the country.
The Russian law on fisheries demanding that all fish caught in Russian economic zone shall be delivered in Russian ports came into effect on January 1. Until then half of the caught fish (more than 1,5 million tons) had been delivered abroad, thus depriving Russian costal settlements of workplaces, the Russian treasury of incomes and Russian consumers of fish.
At the same time, another law lessening the tax burden on fishing companies when making port calls in Russia was activated. The law removed taxes for fishing vessels repaired or modernized abroad. Until then, shipowners have had to pay value added tax and import duties on all new equipment when calling a Russian port. Consequently, a significant part of the vessels registered for example in Murmansk, never went to that port, but used ports in Norway as bases instead.
It is expected that the number of Russian fishing vessels to call ports in Norway will go down even more in 2009.
