Russian President Vladimir Putin expects changes to be made to Russian fishing industry laws at the State Duma spring session.
According to the Interfax news agency, Vladimir Putin has commented that the possibility of providing fishing enterprises with 20% investment quotas, split between 5% going to onshore infrastructure development and 15% to construction of new vessels, the so-called keel quota, is currently being considered, he said.
Currently, amendments to laws governing the fishing industry stipulating an increase in supplies of fresh and refrigerated fish to Russia are expected to be approved by the State Duma during the spring session, he said.
‘I am assuming this bill will become law, approved by the State Duma, in the spring session this year,’ Putin said during the direct line public call-in event, commenting that the bill ‘is undergoing endless agreement between the various government bodies.’
The amendments are needed because a significant portion of Russia’s fish harvest is shipped abroad, returning to Russia in the form of frozen food from China.
‘The sense of the amendments that are being drafted is that fish ought to be brought ashore in either fresh or refrigerated form, while, based on economic considerations, the experts in this field say freezing and then shipping somewhere else is no longer profitable,’ Vladimir Putin said.
