Russian fishery head reports regulatory progress towards 10-year quota shares

The regulatory acts covering a wide range of crucial changes have to be made pursuant to the amendments to the Law on Fishery and Conservation of Aquatic Biological Resources and as per early June 10 government decrees are at an advanced stage of preparation while 7 more acts are pending consent in the Ministry of Justice.

The bulk of the regulations are to come into full force as of 1 January 2009 and the market still has some time to prepare for these new legal and economic conditions for fish business, covering 10 year capture quota shares, salmon river concessions for the period of up to 20 years (salmon fishing sites have already been allocated for 20 years in Kamchatka), soft resource fees for domestic suppliers to Russia, export of products via authorized fish auctions, EEZ high seas catch registration on the customs' territory of the Russian Federation and other measures.

 The letter and spirit of the reform is explicitly aiming at full recovery of Russia's control of fishing operations while banning foreign participation in this field. This will be combined with crackdown on IUU fishing, implementation of sustainability as well as incentives for renewal of domestic fleets and onshore factories. The material flows will be increasingly channeled for processing on Russian territory and in the latter two sectors (including shipbuilding) the foreign investors are expected to find lucrative applications for their capitals.