In the first quarter of 2009, Murmansk Fishery Port handled 71.400 tons of fish. This is twice as much as in the same period in 2008. In March alone, the port received 38.000 tons of fish – the highest monthly amount in five years, website Promurman.ru reports.
- This shows that all speculations from fishery managers and politicians about the port not being ready to handle the expected increased amounts, turned out to be mere words, says assistant to the port’s director Anton Artemyev.
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.
