Ilya Shestakov at the RUSSIA EXPO: "The fishing industry will become one of the drivers of Russia’s economic development in the future"
The planned volume of fish catches in Russia by 2030 will
amount to six million tons — last year it exceeded 5.3 million, which is
already a record for the last 30 years. This was announced by Ilya Shestakov,
Head of the Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo), during the plenary
session "Fishery Complex: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow", which was held
at the International RUSSIA EXPO.
The head of Rosrybolovstvo spoke about the history of the
industry's development and important milestones that determined its current
high performance and created the basis for further growth.
"Our main task is to reach a catch volume of about six
million tons by 2030. This is where science should help us by providing new
fishing areas. As well as a new fleet that will allow us to catch this
volume," Ilya Shestakov said.
In addition, by 2030, according to the development strategy
of the fishery complex, the structure of fish production will change: the share
of deep processing of catches in the total volume should increase to 50%. At
the same time, the head of Rosrybolovstvo noted that in 2023 this indicator
amounted to 32% - which is almost twice as much as ten years ago (2014 -
10-15%). This trend is facilitated by a comprehensive reform of the industry -
modernization of the fleet and processing.
Russia is carrying out a program of investment quotas;
thanks to the implementation of its two stages, 150 new vessels (fishing and
crabbing vessels) and 36 processing plants will be built in the country. Within
the framework of the first stage, 105 vessels are being built, 22 of them have
already been passed to fishermen and are engaged in fishing. 25 new onshore
fish processing plants are in operation. Within the framework of the second
stage of the reform another 46 vessels and 11 fish processing plants will be
built. In addition to the fishing fleet, the renewal of the transportation and
logistics infrastructure will begin. It is planned to build refrigerator
transport ships to deliver quality products from fishing areas to the shore, as
well as to create six new logistics complexes.
"These are large infrastructure facilities, where
refrigerated storage capacities of 25-50 thousand tons are planned. In fact, we
will completely solve the issue related to both storage and logistics to
transshipment points," Ilya Shestakov said.
The head of the Federal Agency for Fishery listed the
current achievements. The main result of the work of fishing enterprises is the
catch. In 2023, the production rate is a record for the last 30 years - 5,3
million tons. At the same time, Ilya Shestakov explained that the data are
real-time, and according to the revised data, the catch will exceed 5.3 million
tons.
Commercial aquaculture has also shown good results over the
last 10 years - the indicator has more than doubled to 402 thousand tons,
including a significant increase in the production of salmon.
In 2023, the total turnover of fishing and fish-processing
organizations for the first time in history exceeded 1 trillion rubles (+17% to
2022), while in 2014 this figure was only 170 billion rubles. As a consequence,
the total amount of taxes and social contributions in 2023 amounted to 112
billion rubles, and it is important that part of this amount is allocated to
the consolidated budgets of fishing regions.
"This makes it possible to develop social
infrastructure, the infrastructure of fishing villages, which was mentioned by
Russian President Vladimir Putin in his Address to the Federal Assembly. I
think that the fishing industry will be one of the drivers of economic
development in the future," Ilya Shestakov concluded.
