MOSCOW, December 25. /TASS/. Russia’s agency for fisheries, Rosrybolovstvo, is not considering the possibility of a fish export embargo due to the latest surge in the exchange rate of the dollar, the agency’s chief, Ilya Shestakov, told TASS in an interview.
“The export may develop an uptrend, but there is no need for an embargo,” Shestakov said. A weak ruble is a powerful incentive to exporting fish, but prices inside Russia have been growing, which allows for keeping the market in balance, he said.
He foresees the possibility of decisions that may straighten out the situation stemming from a weak ruble and the disparity of prices after detailed monitoring and analysis. "The Russian fishing industry lacks the capability to process all fish that is being exported,” he believes. “By and large, we have no idea what to do about the amount of pollock we catch. In Russia, the demand for it is way below supply,” he said.
In general, Russian fish export has dropped by 14% in contrast to 2013, and the import of fish fell by 5%.
“The fishermen have turned attentively to our advice to retarget the supplies of red fish from the Far East to the central parts of the country,” Shestakov said. The export of herring has been down by 40%, and of Pacific salmon, by 60%.
Russia is the largest fish exporter, providing 1.8 million tons of seafood to the world market, with its own catch standing at above 4 million tons. Mostly Far Eastern varieties of fish are meant for export. At the same time, Russia imports one million tons of fish a year.