28 Jan 2013 18:26

Russian fishermen use up 20% of harvest quota in Moroccan zone

MOSCOW. Jan 28 (Interfax) - Russian fishing outfits, who returned this year to Moroccan waters, harvested around 20,500 tonnes of fish of a 100,000-tonne quota in the period January 11-17, the head of the Russian federal fisheries agency Rosrybolovstvo PR center Alexander Saveyev told Interfax.

Six vessels from the Murmansk trawling fleet and Kaliningrad-based CJSC Vestrybflot are now plying Morocco's waters. They will be joined by another ship out of Murmansk in March.

The view at Rosrybolovstvo is that the return of Russian fishing boats to the Morocco zone will make it possible to increase consumption in Russia of many popular kinds of fish, particularly mackerel, horse mackerel, and anchovy. Consumption of horse mackerel, which fell off to 1.2-1.3 kilograms per person per year could double, the agency thinks.

The fishermen operating in Moroccan waters caught 3,700 tonnes of mackerel and around 900 tonnes of horse mackerel in the period January 11-17.

A memorandum of mutual understanding between Rosrybolovstvo and the Moroccan Agriculture and Fisheries Ministry allowing Russian fishing vessels to return to the country's waters was signed on December 10 last year. Per this memorandum, the association of Russian fishing outfits operating in the zones of countries on the West African coast paid Morocco a financial consideration of $5 million for the right of access to maritime resources. After this, the Moroccan maritime fisheries department worked up the industrial licenses for the Russian ships.