Russia to join trend to ship fish in containers

Deliveries of fish in bulk to China as was typical for the Russian suppliers until recently, are unlikely to resume in the same volumes, reports Megafishnet.com.

According to the head of the Federal Agency for Fishery (FAF) Ilya Shestakov, now the world market is massively switching to shipments in refrigerated containers minimizing human contact with products during reloads. Therefore, the transition to container transportation is the task of today.

Meanwhile, the FAF’s head said in late July that the Chinese side neither imposes additional requirements on Russian fishermen, nor provides test reports on the facts of contamination that were allegedly detected in the Russian fish.

"The resumption of shipments to China is of great importance in order to unload the refrigeration capacities. Now, for the salmon season, we are unloading the refrigeration capacities in the Russian Far East as much as possible (especially in the port of Vladivostok) actively shipping fish to central Russia.

China is the largest importer of Russian fish products accounting for about 61% of the Russian fish exports. Last year, a little more than one million tons of Russian fish were delivered to China. However, at the end of last year, bulk deliveries to China were suspended as COVID-19 was allegedly detected on Russian products as well as cases of coronavirus were recorded among the personnel.

The collapse in the Chinese ports due to the new control system has accelerated the change of the Russian seafood export policy in geographical terms.

According to the FAF’s head, since the beginning of 2021, the shipments to Japan, South Korea, the European Union, Africa and Latin America have increased. For example, exports to South Korea and Japan doubled, and to the Republic of Nigeria they surged from almost zero to 21 thousand metric tons.

As for the recovery of shipments to China, according to the official, the negotiations are continuing, but they are not easy.