Russian Government to look into measures towards inshore fishery development

Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency has developed a program for inshore fishery development to 2012, the document containing a location scheme of seafood coldstores and fish processing plants, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to REGNUM.

According to the Agency's head Andrey Krainy, the coldstores will be placed in 29 regions, including Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kaliningrad, Ekaterinburg and Vladivostok. The total capacity of the coldstores will reach 145,000 tonnes stored at any one time.

As for fish processing plants, some of them will be placed in the Russian Far East, mostly in the vicinity to the consumer. Krainy says that it is more profitable to make a short trip from the grounds in order to land fish for processing. Moreover, fish processing plants provide the local population with jobs. Russia's fishery industry head says that the focus will be made on construction of small plants to be established by small and medium size businesses.

Andrey Krainy also says that the Government of the Russian Federation will look into the above measures on development of inshore infrastructure of the nation's fishery industry on 14 May 2009. Should the program be approved, in 2012 the fishery industry will enjoy a modern infrastructure despite the current financial crisis.