Fishing spot

There is a plan for a large scale modernization of fishing berths and infrastructure in Russia as well as for comprehensive renovation of the fishing fleet. For that purpose, experts say, legislation improvements are required in the field of dredging, hydraulic engineering, investment quotas in exchange for placing newbuilding orders with domestic shipyards and taxation.

Getting prepared for the growth

As of today, fish port infrastructure of Russia numbers 48 fishery terminals.

According to FGFI Center of Fishery Monitoring and Communications, some 1.5 million tonnes of fish (excluding preserved fish) is unloaded every year (export fish is not included). Most of fish is handled in the Far East (some 1.2 million tonnes per year). Unloading in the Arctic Basin totals about 160,000-250,000 tonnes per year, in the Baltic Basin – about 70,000 tonnes, in the Azov-Black Basin – about 60,000 – 70,000 tonnes.

The largest fishery terminals are located at the port of Vladivostok (750,000 tonnes per year), Murmansk (150,000 tonnes per year) and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky (135,500 tonnes per year).

Under the Strategy for the development of sea terminals providing comprehensive services to fishing ships and taking into consideration the onshore logistics infrastructure intended for transportation, storage and distribution of fish products over the period through 2030, annual unloading of aquatic biological resources at seaports of the Primorsky Territory is expected to grow by 500,000-550,000 tonnes by 2030, in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky – by 150,000 tonnes, in the Sakhalin Region – by 100,000 tonnes, in the Khabarovsk Territory (Vanino) – by 100,000 tonnes. So, the demand for additional facilities in the Far East Basin – 850,000-900,000 tonnes per year by 2030.

Unloading of fish products in the Arctic and Baltic basins is expected to grow to 500,000 tonnes including 200,000 – 220,000 tonnes to be handled in Murmansk, 40,000 – 50,000 tonnes – in Arkhangelsk and 230,000 – 250,000 tonnes – in Kaliningrad.
 
In the Azov-Black Sea Basin, production of aquatic biological resources is expected to grow by 145,000 tonnes per year.

Totally, transshipment of water resources via the ports of Russia is to grow by about 1.5 million tonnes per year. Thus, it will be twice as much as today. Additional facilities will provide comprehensive services to 170 units f the fishery fleet.

As for production, it totaled 4.8 million tonnes in 2017.

Dredging and building

Two-fold growth of fish unloading will require modernization of the terminals and storage facilities. When speaking at the Hydraulic Engineering Structures and Dredging Congress organized by Media Group PortNews, Andrey Zdetovetsky, Head of the Control, Supervision and Fish Conservation Department at the Federal Fisheries Agency, said that dredging is needed at 60% of fishing berths. According to him, it is necessary to dredge 1 million cbm of material. “The struggle for fishing berths’ depth is the struggle for fresh products”, emphasized Andrey Zdetovetsky.

Aleksandr Markov, Head of HES Operation Department, FSUE Natsrybresurs, said that there are too many approvals and administrative procedures required today. According to him, it is necessary to streamline the process >>>>

Representatives of the fishery industry see another challenge in providing investment quotas in exchange for placing newbuilding orders only with domestic shipyards. German Zverev, President of the All-Russian Association of Fishing Industry, Businessmen and Exporters, such quotas are a sort of “risk premium” since Russian shipbuilders are not experienced in building large-tonnage fishing vessels. Besides, there are cases of multi-month delays in newbuilds delivery. German Zverev says the current terms stipulate that if a shipyard misses contractual deadline, fishing enterprise will be deprived of quotas as well. 

"There’s an issue to be addressed. A fisherman should not have troubles in case of failure to keep contractual deadline: the one who had invested money, spent money, should be awarded the quota. But in reality, firstly, if someone fails to keep the deadline, he (the fisherman) looses this quota, and secondly, he pays a fine to the state and he suffers losses for the investments he had made. This issue has not yet been regulated properly", German Zverev was quoted as saying.

One more problem related to placing orders for fishing ships: a lot of small fishing companies are only subject to unified agricultural tax without paying VAT. However VAT is included into leasing payments which presents a barrier for applying leasing mechanisms in this industry. 

The work to improve legislation covering those issues is underway.

Vitaly Chernov