Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency to speed up modernization of fish port infrastructure

The need to develop onshore infrastructure capable of handling increased seafood landings has grown especially urgent due to mandatory customs clearance of EEZ's catch at the home ports, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to a report delivered by Russia's fishery head Andrey Krainy.

At present, 60% out of 18 km of landing quays in marine fish terminals have to be repaired and 20% of quays are in catastrophic condition and have to be reconstructed.

In 2009 under the federal target program the budget funds will cover implementation of 7 projects on reconstruction of ports' hydroengineering facilities. The projects are supposed to encourage increase of seafood landings from 1.3 million metric tons to 3.5 million tonnes.

Delays with customs clearance of vessels and fish cargoes observed in January-February 2009 have been mostly due to the lack of the law enforcement practice in the sphere of customs clearance of seafood for further export.

The Agency has proposed to introduce amendments to the Customs Code as to the defining of the status of aquatic biological resources shipped from the economic zone to the customs territory in order to solve the issues connected with the levying of customs duties.

The above mentioned measures on better seafood handling are aimed at:

• Raising competitiveness of marine ports;
• Increasing seafood transshipment at ports 2.8 times;
• Creating 3700 extra jobs.