Russian fishery companies are projected to catch nearly five million metric tons (MT) this year, which is as much as the last year’s result, though another strong salmon season may shift the forecast upward.
Ilya Shestakov, head of the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries, said in his interview to media during the third Global Seafood Forum held in St. Petersburg, Russia that the industry is set to catch five million metric tons. That’s a target that would have the industry matching up with 2018, which turned out to be record-breaking with its 5.110 million MT catch.
“We are working to get more ships to fish iwashi, saury, and mackerel. The fisheries involved show very good results,” he said.
As of 14 August, 3.23 million MT was caught, up 0.6 percent to the corresponding period of 2018.
However, the forecast seems rather cautious as there is good news from the Russian Far East, where the salmon season started on 1 June. As of 14 August, 383,000 MT of salmon has been harvested, which is 49.81 percent higher than on the same day in 2017. Moreover, it is 4.55 percent higher than 14 August, 2018, a year that saw a record in salmon catch volume at 676,000 MT.
If the trend continues, there could be a slight increase over the five million MT projected by the fishery agency. For 2019, it was forecast that 460,000 MT of salmon would be caught, and the current pace makes that level seem achievable.
The stability of a yearly catch of five million MT has another dimension to the development of the fishery industry in Russia. Recently, the Russian Agency for Statistics has reported that the average Russian citizen ate 21.7 kilograms of seafood in 2018, which is very close to the consumption level recommended by the Ministry of Health and the desired target of the fishery agency.
However, the potential to reach that target is not that optimistic looking at the catch, import, and export numbers.
The fishery association calculated that the five million MT of fish caught by Russian fisheries in 2018, were processed into 4.164 million MT of seafood: 2.236 million MT was exported, and 600,000 MT was imported, leaving a total of 2.528 million MT of seafood available for Russian consumers.
Russia’s population was 146.8 million, as estimated by the Russian Agency for Statistics, so simple math shows that only 17.2 kilograms of seafood was available per-person, the association’s president Vitaly Kornev told Fishnews agency, provided that every kilogram of seafood was sold, bought, and eaten.
With the fishery agency talking about a five-million-MT catch as a good result, and the government talking about doubling seafood exports, it’s a question of where seafood for the desirable level of consumption of 22 kilograms per year will come from.
Photo courtesy of Cliff White/SeafoodSource
