Russia and China strengthening control of catch legal origins

As per early September 2007 a team of specialists from Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance Rosselkhoznadzor has been making a big tour of Asian Pacific countries, a spokesman of the service told http://www.fishnet-russia.com/ (https://www.fishnet.ru/).

The results of the group's visit will be made public after it returns from the trip. In the meantime, the service's spokesman has confirmed that Rosselkhoznadzor has come to an agreement with their Chinese colleagues about the state port control aimed at proving legality of seafood exported to the Russian Federation.

Introduction of similar measures in the ports of Japan and Korea is next on agenda after China. Rosselkhoznadzor hopes that the negotiations, which are now carried out in the above mentioned two countries, will have positive results by the new year 2008.

Now the exporters have to present documents proving that all the fish onboard the vessel has been harvested legally, that is within the quota, not only when imported from Russia, but also when exported to the country. Towards that end, NEAFC countries have already agreed about the state port control introduced in the Russian North Fisheries Basin in May 2007. Similar control is carried out at sea when transshipping catches from one vessel to another.

Port control procedures have been already practiced in the EU States. Russia's first partners in the project are the EU countries, Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands. In other words, seafood cargoes in the northern lands of Russia have been displaying increasing legality, while the Russian Far East has been struggling with a greater degree of poaching. At the same time, the lion's share of the Russian fish is exported to China, Japan and Korea. This year those countries have shown more willingness to establish a civilized relationship with Russia as regards control of catch legal origins, said Rosselkhoznadzor.