The government has put forward an initiative to the cancel quotas of fishermen that produce less than 50% of their catch by using of their own fleet. And, according government plans, by 2020 all Russian fishing companies that have quotas to fish in the country’s territorial waters, should be using domestic shipyards to build their boats.
At the same time, the government also plans to cancel the quotas of fishermen that catch less than 70% of their total quota.
In recent years the amount of fraud in the Russian fishing market has significantly increased, resulting in fishing companies that receive a quota from the government selling that quota on for a higher price. The government also plans to stop this.
It is planned that the seized quotas will be sold at auction. According to Alexander Savelyev, Head of the Department of Information and Communications of the Russian Fisheries Agency (Rosrybolovstvo), the annual revenue of quota resellers in Russia is estimated at 4 billion rubles (USD$120m).
The new proposals will be sent to Russia’s Prime Minister, Dmitry Medvedev, for consideration in the next two weeks.
Mercator Media Ltd 2014