Russian President Vladimir Putin called Friday for encouraging the development of the country's fishing industry and cracking down on illegal fishing, ITAR-TASS reported according to Prime-Tass.
"Changes in the (fishing) industry are slow and its competitiveness falls far short of the country's rich fishing potential," Putin said at a meeting of the State Council, a presidential advisory body.
He said he was unhappy with Russian companies selling cheap unprocessed fish instead of expensive processed fish.
"No crucial positive changes have taken place in the fishing and fish processing industries," Putin said. "We're still selling cheap unprocessed fish and then buying overpriced imported (processed) fish, which is in high demand among Russian consumers."
Putin also said that fishing companies were failing to meet quotas for some fish species. The sale of some fish species in Russia has low profit margins, which is why some fish quotas are not met.
Commenting on the fishing industry's other problems, Putin said that many Russian fishing boats and fishing ports were obsolete. He proposed raising private and government investments to upgrade fishing ports and build new fishing boats.
Putin also called for cracking down on fish poaching and creating favorable conditions in the fishing industry to encourage legal fishing.
In particular, Putin instructed the government to tighten control over fishing in Russia's exclusive economic zone, which extends about 200 nautical miles from the coast. At present, the government controls its territorial waters, which extend 12 miles from the coast, but is unable to oversee fishing beyond the 12-mile limit, he said. As a result, Russia's exclusive economic zone is the source of major illegal transactions, he added.
Speaking about measures aimed at stimulating the fishing industry, First Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov suggested cutting tariffs on imports of ship components that are not produced in Russia and reducing the value added tax (VAT) for shipyards that produce fishing boats.
Ivanov also proposed increasing the duration of fishing quotas to 10 years. It is not clear for how many years fishing quotas are given now.
He also said that quotas should only be given to Russian fishing companies with Russian-registered boats.