MOSCOW, August 15, /ITAR-TASS/. Rosrybolovstvo (Russia's Federal Agency for Fishery) has referred a proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture to supplement Russia's embargo with a ban on the import of canned fish and processed fish products from European Union countries, the United States, Norway, and Canada, Deputy Minister of Agriculture Ilya Shestakov told Izvestia.
Shestakov said, "We consider that such a possibility exists. The more so as we can turn out advanced-processing products galore on our own, with the exception of a small range of fish products. Russia can fully substitute imported canned fish for domestically produced one".
The import of fry, on the contrary, is supposed to be allowed, for they are not a food product, whereas Russia's salmon cultivating farms depend on the supply of fry and feed from Norway.
The Deputy Minister acknowledged that a number of farms in the north-western region may come to face difficulties connected with a shortage of rawstuff. "Those companies which have already made purchases abroad but lacked time to bring the cargo to Russia's territory may also face difficulties. This is a really serious problem. A solution for the enterprises is in reorienting themselves to Russian rawstuff which can be processed," Shestakov pointed out.
The Deputy Minister said that Rosrybolovstvo and the Ministry of Agriculture also have available a number of proposals to prevent a pricerise on Russia's fish.
"This, first, will stimulate the transportation of fish from the Far East to Central Russia. What is required is to improve the logistics of fishery through both a possible subsidizing and the introduction of priorities for fish cargo coming from the Far East via transportation corridors. That is, fish carrying transports must be allowed to proceed to central Russia by way of priority," the official said.