Working Meeting between Assistant of Rosselkhoznadzor’s Head Alexey Alekseenko and Chairman of Fisheries Council of Canada (FCC) Bruce Chapman

The Meeting took place upon the initiative of the Canadian party. The Council established in 1915 is a non-profit trade association representing more than a hundred of companies engaged in the growing, harvesting, processing, importing and marketing of fish and seafood. FCC maintains ongoing liaison with ministers and officials of numerous government departments, agencies, and parliamentary committees. Besides FCC maintains ongoing relations with fish and seafood industry associations in other countries as well as international organizations such as the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Bruce Chapman informed the Rosselkhoznadzor representatives about his meeting with Ilya Shestakov, Head of Rosrybolovstvo, and detailed the possible ways to expand the cooperation between the Canadian and Russian fish industries. He noted that the Russian export share accounts just for 120 million US dollars within the Canadian export of fish and sea products in the amount of four billion dollars a year. Herewith the export of shrimps is estimated to be worth 80 million US dollars a year. The export of fish products from Russia to Canada does not exceed 25 million dollars. But the both parties noted that it is difficult to estimate the volume of re-export via third countries. They agreed that direct deliveries would be more beneficial for the economies of both countries. The introduction of modern efficient traceability systems for raw products and goods would prevent illegal re-export. Bruce Chapman expressed an opinion that the cooperation between the industries of both countries can be based on the development of joint projects for example projects for catching and processing of snow crabs spawned in the Barents sea. Currently the export of this crab species to the international market is ensured by Canada up to 50% and the country can propose modern technologies for its catching and processing as well as the promotion in the global market. According to Bruce Chapman Canada is also interested in the exchange of quotas for fish catching. The Canadian fisheries companies are also interested in purchases of trawlers from Russia. Bruce Chapman addressed to the Rosselkhoznadzor with a request to speed up the consideration of documents sent by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and related to the removal of deficiencies on six Canadian fishing vessels which previously had violated the requirements of the Russian legislation. He highlighted that the FCC is ready to provide additional safety guarantees for the Canadian fish products exported to the Russian market. Even now the Council is ready to send to the Rosselkhoznadzor the data about the fish product laboratory testing for the compliance with the Russian and CU requirements every month. The FCC also addressed to the Rosselkhoznadzor with a request to inspect Canadian fish processing establishments interested in export of their products to Russia and other Customs Union countries as soon as possible. Besides the Council is ready to cooperate with the CFIA in the sphere of the promotion of the Canadian-Russian intergovernmental relations related to safety of fish, fish and sea products exported to the Russian market as well as to cooperation system with the competent authorities of the foreign countries. The parties noted the openness of the Rosselkhoznadzor in the cooperation with the representatives of the industry.