Late-September 2009 featuring new fish price trends in Russia's capital
In the last week of September 2009 trade in freshfrozen seafood in Moscow has been showing both negative and positive price trends with large price changes covering such popular species as Atlantic salmon and blue whiting, analysts of www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) concluded after analyzing the current situation on the market.
More specifically, September 2009 has become the month of active price falls for the bulk of fish products. Except for several fish species there has been a strong price decrease for tilapia and pangasius fillets, Atlantic herring, mackerel, pink salmon, Atlantic salmon, trout and a number of other species. The price falls have been due to several factors. In case with pink salmon, herring and mackerel the price decrease has resulted from the traditional economic factors such as a large market supply (thanks to extremely generous catches in the Russian Far East) and the corresponding market saturation. The decline of tilapia fillet prices has been connected with large imports of the product which have been spurred on by the importers' fears of possible ban on seafood importation from China. The price fall for the North American hake has been caused by weak demand from the importers and decreased offer prices from the exporters.
In the course of September 2009 the prices have been falling for Norwegian salmon and trout. The price decline on the Russian market has been connected with falling export prices in Norway where the prices have been falling several weeks running.
More or less stable prices have been observed for such species as pollock, Baltic sprat and herring, capelin and squid.
Blue whiting has been September's leader in price growth. Through the closing week of September only the fish appreciated by more than RUB1.00 per kilo, while the price rise through the month amounted to ca.RUB5.00, the price rising from RUB27.00 per kilo in the beginning of the month to RUB32.00 per kilo ex-coldstore in Murmansk in the end of September 2009.
Catch
As per 29 September 2009 Russia's total harvest of finfish and other aquatic species amounted to 2,820,600 tonnes, 315,600 tonnes up on the corresponding result of 2008. The TACs were covered at 70.9%, 12.6% up on the corresponding result of last year.
State interventions
State purchases of seafood products which have been initiated by the Federal Fisheries Agency in order to maintain pink salmon prices on the domestic market against the background of the record breaking salmon season have been postponed due to the delay with the credit issue by Russia's Agricultural Bank. In the last week of September 2009 the number of companies willing to take part in the fish purchases has increased by another two businesses Talex Group and Brig Star (the group now counting four including the first comers National Fish Resources and Dalmoreproduct).
Vet update
Scheduled for mid-September the Russian-Chinese talks on imported seafood quality, new fishmeal clearance procedure and other issues have not been confirmed by the government of China.
In the closing week of September 2009 Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Rosselkhoznadzor has notified about mutual inspections of Peruvian and Armenian fishing and fish processing companies willing to export their products to the Russian Federation. The checks are aimed at learning the methods of the competent bodies of Peru and Armenia towards securing safety of conditions of clearing seafood products for export to Russia.
According to the results of the above inspections, the Russian vets will look into possible approval of the nations' fishing and processing plants for export to the Russian Federation.
Along with the aforementioned developments, Rosselkhoznadzor has also lifted temporary restrictions for seafood imports from the Norwegian plant No. N-541 (Lofoten Viking AS) as of 23 September 2009.