Russian PM issuing instruction for further development of fishery industry
After consultations in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and Magadan Russia's PM Mikhail Fradkov has given a number of fishery related commissions to several ministries and departments.
More specifically, the Ministry of Agriculture is commissioned to consider an urgent issue of expediency of amendments to the FEDERAL LAW ON FISHERY AND CONSERVATION OF AQUATIC BIOLOGICAL RESOURCES No.166-FZ dated 20 December 2004 (the English-language version of the law can be downloaded from the Publications section of http://www.fishnet-russia.com/ at http://www.fishnet-russia.com/issues/docs/official_documents/). Those amendments provide for exemption of pacific salmons from the list of aquatic biological stocks subject to allocation via the annually approved TACs.
Along with the above, the Ministry of Agriculture in cooperation with the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Economic Development should prepare and forward for consideration to Russia's Government a draft federal law "On amendments to Article 25 of Part 2 of the Tax Code of the Russian Federation". The law is supposed to draw up the contributory scheme for resource fees to be paid for actual catches and to define the rules of refund of fees for the resources remaining uncovered.
The Ministry of Economic Development and Ministry of Agriculture will also analyze efficiency of the state management of the fishery industry. With the help of law-enforcement and power bodies and the Ministry of Nature the above mentioned two ministries will scrutinize the existing system of policing of aquatic biological resources. The result of their monitoring should be developed into proposals how to improve the areas.
In general, Russia's agriculture, finance and customs bodies have been charged with a task to scrutinize the current situation as regards exports and domestic landings and develop incentives to increase supplies of seafood and raw fish to the domestic market and encourage value-added processing at onshore plants inside Russia.
The Ministry of Agriculture and the Federal Fisheries Agency are commissioned to shortly pass departmental acts concerning fishery regulations for each of the nation's fishery basins. Besides, in cooperation with the executive bodies of the Russian Far East the above two organizations should analyze take-up of catch quotas, take steps towards better exhaustion and propose a scheme of quota reallocation to new users.
Magadan
Fradkov says that Magadan administration should develop a program for introduction of ranched populations of Pacific salmons into the province's small rivers and provide full load of its hatcheries. With support from the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Economic Development Magadan administration should develop and introduce measures aimed to resume seal hunting and to encourage value-added processing of the harvested raw fish.