The Russian government is continuing to work on legislation that would extend deadlines on requirements contained in its fish quota auctions as companies struggle to meet them.
Russia revealed the results of its first quota auctions in 2018 after proposing the idea as a way of renewing the country’s aging fleet. Those auctions gave companies access to quota after a monetary investment and a promise to build either a new vessel or a new processing facility by a certain date.
Russia's shipbuilding industry started seeing potential problems with meeting deadlines as early as 2020, and earlier this year, Russia began suggesting it could extend deadlines on vessel building to avoid penalizing companies who were facing shipbuilding delays.
Companies planning investments in processing facilities have also been running into delays, and Fishnews reported the government has also been working on amendments that would allow for a one-year reprieve on deadlines. Those amendments would result in changes to how it calculates the volume of production at facilities to assess whether it met requirements.
“In order to ensure the possibility of high-quality adjustment of technological processes in production facilities, the draft resolution proposes not to hold investors liable for the payment of fines in the first calendar year after the commissioning of investment facilities until they reach their design capacity,” the amendment states.
The reprieve comes as Russian senators recently pushed for the chance to protect coastal processing facilities from fines, as the industry grapples with falling exports and a decline in prices.
Companies are also dealing with export duties on frozen fish that were implemented on 1 October 2023. The duties are tied to the exchange rate between the U.S. dollar and the ruble and can be as high as 7 percent.
Fishnews reported that the latest draft of the country’s main financial document includes language suggesting the export duties will remain in place.
Simultaneously, the Russian Federal Fisheries Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) reported that the total catch across the entire country amounted to ...
