Key issues of the second International Fishery Congress
The International Fishery Congress is a forum for Russian and foreign (primarily Asian) businesses, politicians, and NGOs that are involved in development of fisheries around the world, vladivostoktimes.com. The main stress of the forum is on the Russian fish industry, its international marketing, and sustainable fishing. reports
The forum was organized by the Primorye Fisheries Association, the Primorsky Territory Administration, and the Pollack Association of Russia. It is the second such convention and the next one is expected to be held next year. The congress consists of an exhibition of fisheries and service providers and round-table discussions.
Matters of certification, sustainable fishing, national standards, and development of fish processing in Russia became hot topics for discussion at the round table held at the Hyundai Hotel on September 14.
Steve DEVITT of TAVEL Certification Inc., a Canadian certifying company, was invited to the forum to speak on international environmental certification. According to Mr. DEVITT, the Pollack Association, a Russian NGO, is concerned with loosing their marketplace to other fisheries that are certified because their market is telling them very clearly that they must get certified and prove they are managing a sustainable fishery.
Valentina PURKHANOVA of TINRO-Centre made a speech on technical regulations, which are being developed in Russia. TINRO-Centre, a research institute based in Vladivostok, is directly engaged in drafting the technical regulations. They are primarily concerned with setting up a national standard for sustainable fishing (ensuring that fishing will not exterminate the population).
In his report, Andrei OVCHINNIKOV, the Sales and Marketing Director of the Managing Company BAMR (the Nakhodka Active Marine Fishery Base), stressed some problems of Russian fisheries. According to Mr. OVCHINNIKOV, the competition from China in the European fillet market is quite pressing, but Russian fishermen provide better quality of the product. The reason for this difference is that Russian fishermen make fillet of fresh fish right onboard their ships, which is called single frozen fillet. Chinese producers make fillet after defrost with chemical additives saturating it with water to increase the weight. The MSC certification system can guarantee a certain level of sustainability of a fishery, but have nothing to do with the product quality. BAMR is among a few Russian fishing companies that also supply single frozen fillet to Europe.
The reasons why many Russian fisheries supply frozen headed and gutted stock to China without further processing it into fillet are purely economic. First, many Russian fisheries lack the necessary certification. Second, as participants of the round table said, the Chinese government applies a number of protectionist measures for their fish-processing industry, whereas the Russian government does little to support fish-processing in Russia. Fisheries encounter numerous bureaucratic obstacles when they put forward suggestions for government regulations and fiscal policies, e.g. compensation for the high cost of gasoline and oil.
