President Putin signed Bill on Inshore Fishery into Law
President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed Federal Law No. 338 of 02.07.2021 "On Amendments to the Federal Law "On Fisheries and Conservation of Aquatic Biological Resources" and Certain Legislative Acts of the Russian Federation". The relevant document was published on July 2, 2021 on the official Internet portal of legal information, reports Megafishnet.com.
The signed amendments to the legislation allow, when conducting the inshore fishery, to carry out primary processing of caught aquatic biological resources directly on ships.
The law comes into force 10 days after its official publication and permits the production of live, fresh and chilled fish products, the types of which shall be determined by the Government of the Russian Federation in accordance with the All-Russian classifier of products by types of economic activity, when carrying out inshore fishery on fishing fleet vessels.
Such products can also be transported, stored and unloaded to the seaports of the Russian Federation and other places of unloading for subsequent processing on the territory of the maritime region and sale.
The Bill proposes to establish the types of primary processing of the catch of aquatic biological resources that are allowed on vessels of the fishing fleet when carrying out the inshore fishery.
Previously, fishing vessels within the framework of coastal fishing were allowed to do the transportation, storage and unloading of the catch of aquatic biological resources in fresh, live and chilled form.
It is noted that the peculiarities of some fishing basins, for example, the Murmansk-led Northern Fisheries, do not allow coastal fishing near seaports and points of unloading of fish products. Instead, the inshore fishery is carried out at a great distance from the point of departure of the vessel, the trip in one direction taking up to 2 days.
Thus, the delivery to seaports of some types of aquatic biological resources that have not undergone primary processing entailed a violation of the technical documentation.
Meanwhile, the primary processing of the catch in the shortest possible time after the haul on the vessels of the inshore fleet guarantees the production of chilled fish of high quality while preserving its nutritional and biological value.
The norm according to which catches of aquatic biological resources have to be delivered to the shore in a live, fresh or chilled form has been in force since 2019. The bill lifting the ban on the primary processing of fish on fishing vessels was submitted to the State Duma in November 2020.
The idea behind the previous legislation was to make the inshore fishermen land the catch to the domestic processors or sale on the domestic market while preventing loopholes for export of the inshore catch. On the other hand, the companies choosing to conduct inshore fishery will be given 20% extra quotas as an incentive.