Good results for Sakhalin exporters and producers in 2007
According to provisional information, in 2007 Sakhalin-based fishing companies harvested 518,300 tonnes of finfish and other aquatic species to display a 14.5% increase on 2006, reports RIA Sakhalin-Kurily.
Many of the fishing and processing companies are registered in the province's capital of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk thus contributing 26.1% of the local harvest. For comparison, the share of Kholmsk District amounted to 17.4%, Korsakov District - 11.1% and Poronaisk District - 6.4%.
As usual, the number of the largest contributors included Kurilsk, Yuzhno-Kurilsk and Severo-Kurilsk Districts with the shares correspondingly amounting to 8.5%, 8.2% and 5.7% from the total harvest of finfish and other aquatic species. The remaining districts harvested 16.6% of all the finfish and other aquatic products.
The province has been traditionally producing a wide range of food fish products. More specifically, in 2007 Sakhalin companies produced 552,800 tonnes of food fish products less canned fish, which was 21.9% up on 2006. The growth of the food fish output (less canned) could be attributed mostly to frozen finfish (less herring) the share of which amounted to 62.7% of the total output of food fish (thus displaying a rise of 28.2%). Besides, production of salted fish grew 1.5-fold, while the output of shellfish, mollusks and seaweed for human consumption also rose by 10.1%.
As for other categories of food fish products, there was a decreasing trend in production volumes. More specifically, the province's output of minced fish for human consumption decreased 2.5 times, smoked fish (less herring) - 1.8 times and dried and dry-cured fish - 1.5 times.
Companies based in the region's capital Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk were the largest producers of food fish for the market contributing 30.5% to the total production volume. They were followed by firms based in Kholmsk (11.9%), Korsakov (10.2%), Kurilsk (9.9%), North Kurilsk (7.9%), South Kurilsk (6.6%) and Poronaisk (5.9%).
In 2007 the province produced 41,728,000 nominal canned and preserved fish units (ca.325gr), which was 17.5% down on 2006. Companies based in Yuzhno-Kurilsk and the surrounding district were the province's main producer of canned fish and shellfish contributing 33.6% of Sakhalin's total canned fish output.
In 2007 the province exported 193,100 tonnes of finfish and other aquatic products accounting for 3.1% of the total volume of Sakhalin's export.
Out of exported fish species the bulk of 169,400 tonnes or 87.7% was contributed by frozen fish, of which 83% were made up by Alaska pollock, 8.2% by salmons, 3.1% by herring and 1.7% by flounder. Apart from fish, Sakhalin-based companies exported all crab species accounting for 1.6% of the total export volume and other mollusks in live form - sea urchins (1.3%), shrimps (0.9%), squid (0.1%), etc.
As for towns and cities, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk remained the main exporter of finfish and other aquatic species in the region with the capital contributing 50.7% of the province's total seafood export.
Kholmsk-based companies contributed 18.7% from the total volume of seafood exports, those based in Kurilsk - 10.8%, Severo-Kurilsk - 8.5%, Korsakov - 4.4%, Yuzhno-Kurilsk - 3.4% and Poronaisk - 2.7%.
According to provisional results, Sakhalin province took the third place among the regions of the Russian Far East in terms of catches, the second place - in terms of production of commodity food fish products and canned fish.