Summary of International Fishery Congress in Vladivostok

The 6th International Fishery Congress has taken place in Vladivostok on September, 6-7. 

The congress has been rather poorly promoted, there is not much information about it either on its internet page http://www.fish-forum.ru/, or in livejournal, twitter and facebook pages even in Russian, and almost nothing in English.  Our correspondent was present at almost all events at the Congress, and has summed up his impressions.

The congress real purposes are:

• 1. To give Far-Eastern fishermen an opportunity to communicate directly with Federal Fishery Agency bosses and to deliver their opinions without intermediaries. It is this place where many new approaches were born including mandatory customs clearance of fish catches from the EEZ on Russian shore, live crab export ban, and many others.
• 2. It is also the easiest way to get information direct from the source. There is no easier way to speak to FFA management for small and medium companies.
• 3. To get together FFA management, fishermen, major customers and all the other stakeholders and give them an opportunity to meet each other. By the way, there is no other place like this in Russia. Business program at Moscow exhibitions is not very popular, Brussels and Qingdao are actively visited by Russians, but there is no communication between them there.

It was interesting to see that most foreigners at the Congress were Europeans.  There were very few people from Japan and China, and not too many from Korea - even in participants list, and even fewer at meetings.  There is an opinion that they are not interested in global matters, and actually can privately meet their partners much more often than once a year.

Some presentations were really interesting.  Western ones for Russians, and Russian ones for foreigners.  The Congress visitors were not always fully satisfied by the Congress.  To those we want to say, please make a discount for long-lasting customs.  It's not simple to change way of thinking, but every next congress is better than the previous one.