On March 1, the FOR group of companies announced its membership of the association. Thus, the group, for which three large processor trawlers are being built under the investment quota program, has joined forces with other large investors in the construction of the fleet.
The association’s members’ total order book under the program amounted to 10 supertrawlers, 13 large and 16 medium-sized fishing vessels. This is more than a third of the total number of ships foreseen by the first stage of the investment quotas. Investments in its construction exceed 60% of the industry’s investments in the construction of the fleet in Russian shipyards.
At the heart of the investors’ strategy is the refurbishment of critically obsolete ships. Without their replacement, in the coming years it will be simply impossible to ensure the extraction of the country’s fish resources, not to mention fishing in oceanic areas under international convention agreements (we wrote about this in detail above).
Recall that the first applications from fishermen for the construction of a fishing fleet and fish processing plants in coastal regions under the investment quota program, or “quotas in exchange for investment”, were selected in 2018. Investors in the construction of new facilities receive fishing quotas and purchase crab quotas at auction. This program has already attracted about 280 billion rubles of private investment in the industry, and the budget has received about 145 billion rubles from investment auctions in crab quotas. Comparable results are anticipated for the second stage.
Despite the objective difficulties of domestic shipbuilding, especially in the conditions of refusal of hostile countries to supply equipment, new fishing vessels go fishing one after another. According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, this year it is planned to put 20 ships into service. At the beginning of March, customers had already received four of them. Another 10 ships were commissioned earlier. The 105 ships of the first stage of the investment quotas should be built by 2026-2027.
“Capacities are being built, competencies are being obtained, the technical documentation has been significantly revised,” Sergei Mitin, first vice-president of the relevant Federation Council committee, said at a recent press conference. – There is a problem with the accessories. In this area, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce created special programs, designated 67 basic component items needed for ships as well as the companies that will produce them, and allocated funds to support production.
Mitin positively assessed the role of the investment quota program, which, in his opinion, boosted the development of both the national shipbuilding and the economy as a whole. In fact, the fleet renewal program being implemented today has no analogues in terms of its scale, not only in modern Russia, but also in the world. After the start of the program, 14 ocean-going ships were built in the country, compared to only five small-tonnage ships in the previous decade. The activation of shipbuilding gives orders to the related industries: mechanical engineering, metallurgy and others.
According to the materials of the press conference of the 1st Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council Committee on Agrarian-Food Policy and Environmental Management Sergey Mitin. Photo: Sergei Petrov
The Federation Council keeps under control the schedule agreed by the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, the Federal Fisheries Agency, the USC and the clients for the commissioning of the fishing vessels for this year. In addition to the Khabarovsk crab catcher, the supertrawler Mekhanik Maslak, the large trawlers Dmitry Kozharsky and Beloe More, which were already delivered at the beginning of the year, another 16 fishing vessels will be added. Their completion is now carried out by Russian shipyards in various regions of the country.
New boats mean safe navigation and fishing, high production results. The annual catch of a modern supertrawler is 60,000 tonnes of haddock, double that of an ancient vessel. But the matter is not only and not so much in quantity. Modern processing ships are floating factories that not only catch, but also process the catch directly at sea into fish fillets, minced meat, surimi (raw materials for crab sticks – ed.). Waste from such production is not thrown “overboard”. They produce fishmeal, which waits on shore for the production of animal feed, and fish oil, which is used in the production of dietary supplements.
Taking into account the capacities of the ships and factories already built, the proportion of deep processing of seafood produced in the country has increased from 17% in 2017 to 30% in 2022. By this indicator, we have to catch up with the United States, our only competitors in the production of the main commercial fish: haddock. American fishermen process more than 90 percent of their catch.
For the first time, there has been an increase in domestic consumption of such products. In the last four years, deliveries of, for example, pollock with mint to Russian consumers have increased 4.6-fold. Steak deliveries increased 13%. As a result, imports of haddock products were reduced to virtually zero last year. The import of surimi of “tropical” fish species, which is inferior in quality to the Russian pollock product, has been completely replaced.
The industry completely covers the demand of the national market for this type of product and is prepared for its growth in response to the high demand of both retail and restaurants. The surplus is exported, in whose structure the proportion of semi-finished fish products is growing, replacing raw materials. This allows us to increase the yield of Russian exports, increase the added value in our country, and not transfer it abroad.
Today, Russia is one of the ten largest suppliers of fish to the world market and also leads in terms of catch growth. According to the forecasts of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), our country will maintain these positions until 2031. The ongoing program for the renewal and development of our own fishing fleet will not only maintain our position, but which will also create a reserve for the next 15 to 20 years.
