ACCORDING TO MR. GERMAN ZVEREV’S OPINION, RUSSIAN FISHERMEN HAS TO MOVE TO A NEW TRANSITIONAL STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT
Despite the same remaining problems and imbalances in the development of the fishing industry in the beginning of 21st century, Russia still manages to keep the status of world fish leading country. At the moment, Russian Fisheries requires a transition to a new stage of development, which includes a production increase and at the same time, it needs the conservation of water bio-resources, the provision of catch growth, reduction of IUU (illegal unreported and unregulated) fishing, as well as strengthening the financial sustainability of this business. Data News Agency reports that all these problems have been discussed by Mr. German Zverev, who is the president of The Pollock Catchers Association, at the round table in the framework of the 10th International Fishermen Congress.
The success of the country in this area has been largely brought by the management model of living aquatic resources. According to Zverev, it was far from random and well thought out.
Mr. German Zverev mentions that the imbalances and contradictions from the years of 1992 till 2004, in many respects lost the acuteness or were overcome at all. And now the transition to a new stage of progress includes an increase of yield, conservation of water bioresources, maintenance of catch growth, reduction of IUU fishing, as well as strengthening the financial stability of enterprises. Moreover, a decrease of the level of corruption has led to investment potential growth.
Mr. Zverev concludes that the decision accepted in 2008 on long-term investment giving users quota shares of aquatic biological resources was a political and economic decision aimed at improving the transparency of financial flows in the fishing industry, strengthening its financial sustainability and on this basis increasing the subsequent investment potential of this industry. The only alternative was the regular (once in every few years) reallocation of quotas between undertakings with the direct involvement of officials on the basis of opaque rules.
The chairman of Pollock Catchers Association has announced four offers in the area of business investment obligations – the use of uniform agricultural tax, the use of national system of ecological certification and stock trading of fish products:
“We suggest to consider a possibility of using the difference between the fixed rate and the preferential rate as indicative parameter for the investment obligations of the enterprises. It will demand about 7,5 milliard rubles for all fisheries management areas of our country. This will make it possible to offer intelligible, non-corrupt and easily administered mechanism to increase investment activity.
We propose to keep all existing benefits for the city-forming enterprises. However, to make changes to the procedure for applying agricultural tax for those business enterprises that are in the current taxation regime without using it as an upgrade of its fixed assets. The application of exemptions or the use of benefits will not renovate the main fund. This is about 1.8-2 billion rubles, thus, only on those two benefits we go to investing sources of around 10 billion rubles. The total investment in fisheries in 2014 amounted 11.2 billion rubles.
We believe that this work is more extensive. We believe that it is necessary, in conjunction with the Federal Fishery Agency, to start work on the establishment of a national system of environmental certification. Of course, it would require extremely careful interaction with fisheries management but it is quite an achievable goal. There have already been several “advanced users” with environmental certification in our industry. They can offer the national environmental system certification.
In our view, the idea for exchange of commercial products and catch of aquatic biological resources as a system should be monopolized and introduced to one exchange platform, which should include a network of marketplaces and meet the public procurement system. In order to avoid the existing situation now, the system of state procurement should function by itself and the system of exchange and auction should trade separately.“
Mr. Petr Savchuk, who is the Deputy Head of the Federal Fishery Agency noted that by September 6th, these proposals will be formalized and sent to the editorial group, which is preparing a report for the State Council scheduled for this autumn.
Source: www.meatinfo.ru