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.

Photo: Ekaterina Chesnokova/RIA News

"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.