Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency working on improvement of availability of credits to nation's fishery industry

In order to develop the infrastructure the fishery sector urgently needs investments. In this situation Russia's Federal Fisheries Agency has arranged for monitoring of credit facilities available for the industry, reports www.fishnet-russia.com (www.fishnet.ru) with reference to a report delivered by Russia's fishery head Andrey Krainy.

The total volume of credits issued to the industry amounts to 11.2 billion RUB and most of them are current credits for working capital with the investment credits totaling only 2.5 billion RUB or 22% of the above sum.

In the meantime, fish businesses have been complaining about low affordability of credits as the interest rates have soared to 20-25% per year. Besides, the banks have strengthened their requirements to the credits' security.

The industry's current need in credits is estimated at more than 29 billion RUB. Therefore it is urgently important to raise the efficiency of investment processes in the sector. The Agency thinks it necessary to recommend the banks with participation of state capital to credit priority investment projects (with moratorium on interest) and to provide entry of fish businesses into the list of recommended sectors to be refinanced by commercial banks on the security of credit agreements.

Towards realization of large investment projects the Agency has made agreements with the Russian Development Bank, Gazprombank and Rosselkhozbank. An agreement has also been signed with Rosagroleasing.