October 21, 2014 — The Russian government has rejected the proposal of some local anaslysts and top officials to introduce duties on the exports of fish to abroad.
The initiative was put forward by Vladimir Miklushevsky, the governor of Primorye region to protect the domestic market.
Vladimir Miklushevsky commented:
"Russia has imposed duties on the imports of Norwegian salmon. We consider this decision as very useful, as we have enough reserves of our own fish. There is a need to establish more processing capacity on shore, instead of the increase of fish exports. I submitted a proposal for the consideration of Arkady Dvorkovich, Russia’s Deputy Prime Minister, who promised to consider it by October, 20.
According to Miklushevsky, duties should be imposed primarily on the exports of salmon and later other types of fish.
However, the initiative of the Primorye governor has not received support in the Russian government, including the country’s President Vladimir Putin.
According to Putin, it is impossible to introduce customs duties and to impose prohibitive measures for the exports of fish, without having the capacity to process it within the country.
According to an official spokesperson of the Russian Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), Russia currently does not experience any lack of salmon in the domestic market. In addition, prices for it remain stable.
According to forecasts of Rosrybolovstvo, total production of Pacific salmon in Russia this year is expected to reach 320,000 tonnes, which will be 70,000 tonnes less than in 2013.
According to Paul Kolotushkin, Head of Sakhalin Fisheries Agency, the governments of Sakhalin and other areas of the Far East were able to significantly improve logistics issues, which allowed a significant increase in fish deliveries to the European part of Russia and in particular Moscow and St. Petersburg.
This story originally appeared on SeafoodNews.com, a subscription site. It has been reprinted with permission.