Mandatory customs clearance of EEZ's fish catch encouraging refurbishment of port infrastructure

Mandatory customs clearance of EEZ's catch as of 1 January 2009 encourages administrations of Russian entry ports to refurbish their infrastructure in order to receive larger volumes of fish and fulfil the requirement of clearing the cargo within three hours, reports http://www.fishnet-russia.com/ (https://www.fishnet.ru/) with reference to Expert.

The respective amendment to the Federal Law on Fishery and Conservation of Aquatic Biological Resources was announced more than six months before it came into force. Therefore port authorities had time to prepare for increased calls and cargoes landed and towards that end ports had to be refurbished and their infrastructure had to be developed.

Andrey Krainy, head of the nation's Federal Fisheries Agency, said that during the first 28 days after the introduction of the new regulation Russian ports handled 68% more fish than in the respective period of 2008. More specifically, ports reported larger shipments of herring, wachna cod, capelin and Russian Alaska pollock.