Fish territory of advanced development to beef up processing and cold storage

Within the next month a number of federal ministries will submit a plan to create a fish territory of advanced development (Russian acronym TOR) in the country’s Far East to expand the capacity for processing and transporting fish in the leading fisheries region, reports Megafishnet.com.

According to the head of the Ministry of Regional Development Alexey Chekunkov quoted by Konkurent, the package to be shortly submitted to the Cabinet for approval will cover fish processing factories, coldstores, refrigerated containers and railway cars.

As a result, the routines for creating new fish processing plants will be greatly simplified, so that they automatically fall under the TOR regimes with all procedures and approvals to be simplified and accelerated.

This approach is quite different from the current regulations which provide framework for multi-sectoral territories of advanced development in particular locations.

According to minister Chekunkov, the issue of processing and transporting Russian fish is urgent. "The current situation has shown, taking into account the coronavirus and the closure of the Chinese market, that the fish industry is "failing". Therefore, it is strategically better to create added value by ourselves to take this fish to the west, increasing supplies to the Russian market along the way and selling to European markets, "the minister said." Now our raw materials are feeding the Chinese fish processing plants, and they then sell all over the world, first of all, to Europe."

The problem of fish sales from the Russian Far East has worsened after China stopped receiving fish from foreign vessels at the end of last year due to COVID-19. Traditionally, up to 70% of the pollock caught has been supplied to the Chinese market. Meanwhile the domestic capacities are not sufficient for storing and processing the region’s huge catch.