Government to discuss situation in fishing industry

The Russian government plans to discuss the question of operation of Russia's fishing industry at the end of July 2003. Opening a meeting of the government commission for preparation of legal acts aimed at improvement of the operation of the fishing industry, Deputy Prime Minister Alexey Gordeyev declared that the government planned to change the regulations on the operation of this sector beginning next year. Gordeyev remarked that serious problems had been accumulated in the fishing industry, "business operations are unstable, and the rules are changed frequently."

A drafted concept of development of the fishing industry for the period until 2020, which is to be submitted to the government for consideration later, will also be discussed at the meeting of the commission. It is pointed out in materials prepared for the commission's meeting that the volume of fishing fell by 53.2 percent during the period from 1991 until 2002. At the same time the volume of fish imports rose by 2.8 times and reached 610,000 tons last year. The volume of Russia's fish exports was 1.1m tons. Goods with a low degree of processing make up over 90 percent of the exports.