Fishery head announcing energetic measures to improve industry's performance

During a recent trip to Vladivostok head of the State Fisheries Committee Andrey Krainy has told the province's fishermen about the committee's plans for the coming twelve months and about the ways to solve the most urgent fishermen's problems, press-service of Primorye Fishermen's Association told http://www.fishnet-russia.com/.

Opening the meeting Andrey Krainy has underlined that the revived State Fisheries Committee actually has full rights of a fisheries ministry as it is charged with the same functions as the ministry and it is subordinated directly to the Government of the Russian Federation. Andrey Krainy has emphasized that the new development is supposed to boost the efficiency of the nation's fishery industry many times.

At the meeting the industry's leader also spoke about his plans for the coming year. First, the committee will prepare an economic basis for implementation of the program "Russian fish to the Russian shore". In particular, there is a need to reduce charges for sea and land transportation from the nation's producers in the Far East Basin to other regions of the country and it is especially urgent to reduce railway charges. According to Andrey Krainy, the corresponding order of a reduction of the railway charges by at least 50% should come into force as of 1 January 2008.

Head of the Russian State Fisheries Committee has also spoken in favour of allocating capture quota shares to the users for a period of at least 10 years as of 2008 when the current five-year quota shares expire. At the same time, Krainy has underlined that the quota shares will be given only to law-abiding companies. As the authority will do its best to create favourable conditions for the fishermen, the fleets are expected to respond with legal operations without poaching and quota resale. In case an establishment is caught poaching, its quota shares and vessels will be forfeited. Only strict measures can help solve the problem of poaching, Krainy said.

Besides, the high rank fisheries official has emphasized the need to modernise the Russian ports and cancel the quota regulation system for several aquatic species. For instance, head of the State Fisheries Committee thinks the quota regulation system should be applied only to continuously decreasing aquatic resources, while the fishery of other species should be regulated by time periods, fishing grounds and fishing gear.

In the course of the meeting Vladivostok fishermen have given their proposals how to make other countries reject illegal products. Andrey Krainy has promised the fishermen to take a close look at their proposals.