Renovation of the fishing fleet has been discussed at the meeting of the Council of Federation Committee for Agrarian and Food Policy and Environmental Management held on 7 October 2019. According to Rosrybolovstvo (Russian Federal Fisheries Agency), the discussion was lead by Aleksey Mayorov, Chairman of the Committee.
Ilya Shestakov, head of Rosrybolovstvo, told about the activities on renovation of domestic fishery facilities. According to him, 43 fishing ships will be built by Russian shipyards by the end of 2025. Total volume of private investments exceeds RUB 166 billion. 18 units will be built for the Far East fishing basin and 25 units – for the Northern basin. Most of them are large ships of over 65 meters in length including 11 vessels with length exceeding 108 meters. One of them is Russia’s largest processing trawler (120-meter long) for the Far East.
All 43 newbuilds have already been contracted with the construction of 25 ships underway at the shipyards of Russia’s European part. The remaining 18 hulls will be laid down before the end of 2021.
With the introduction of 43 new ships, fishing fleet of the Far East will be renovated by 30%, that of the Northern basin – by up to 70%.
Russian Federal Fisheries Agency sees further prospects of the investment programme quotas. To raise to interest of investors, RF Government has recently approved regulatory amendments developed by Rosrybolovstvo and the Ministry of Agriculture. They let increase quotas for catching bottom fish under an investment project. That can trigger the construction of 12 more ships.
Ilya Shestakov also told about consideration of additional measures of state support to cover construction of small-size and mid-size fishing ships in basins and segments not included into investment quota programme.
The new instrument will provide for covering up to 30% of construction cost for vessels built by Russian shipyards.
According to the Agency, the fleets of the Volga-Caspian, Baltic, Azov and Black Sea basins requires about 120 newbuilds.
The head of Rosrybolovstvo also shared the plans on renovation of the crab catching and scientific research fleets.
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