The government of the Primorsky krai region in Russia’s Far East has signed an agreement with the management of the Vladivostok Sea Fishing Port (VSFP) that will see the port shift toward handling less coal and more seafood.
According to the agreement signed by Provisional Governor of Primorsky krai Andrey Tarasenko and VSFP’s CEO Alexander Shevchenko, by the year 2020, the port must stop coal-handling operations currently done at two of the port’s berths.
Instead of coal, VSFP wants to develop fish processing facilities. Through 2021, VSFP will build a cold storage warehousing complex with the projected capacity of 40,000 metric tons, expected to employ up to 100 workers. The company also hopes to build a fish exchange and electronic trading platform. The investment into the project will be RUB 1 billion (USD 17.7 million, EUR 14.3 million).
“Buyers of fish will get a possibility to check the quality of the production,” VSFP co-founder and project manager Alexander Shevchenko said. “We think that the creation of these conditions and the fish exchange, coupled with the help of the region’s government, will bring additional seafood cargoes to the port.”
Shevchenko is projecting VSFP will increase the volume of fish it handles to to 500,000 MT a year, a 66 percent increase over its current figures. Approximately 750,000 MT of fish were landed in the Primorski krai in total in 2017. In 2017, VSFP handled two million metric tons (MT) of cargo, including scrap, containers, coal, fish, and bulk, with fish for around 300,000 MT.
Shevchenko said another benefit of the project is that bringing additional cargo will let the port keep its tariffs for handling at the lowest level in the region. This idea is likely to echo in local authorities’ minds as Russian President Vladimir Putin seems to pay special attention to high price of seafood in the country.
