Russia to set salmon-catch record this year
MOSCOW. Aug 4 (Interfax) - Russia will set a new record for its salmon harvest this year.
The head of Russian federal fisheries agency Rosrybolovstvo, Andrei Krainy, said at a Thursday press conference in Moscow that as of August 4 305,000 tonnes of salmon had been caught, including 206,000 tonnes in Kamchatka. "Today that is an absolute record, the previous record, which fell yesterday, had stood since 1928, when fishermen on the peninsula caught 202,000 tonnes of salmon," Krainy said.
There had been 75,000 tonnes caught in Sakhalin, more than for the same period of last year. "We are on schedule with the record 2009, and even somewhat past it," he said. Russia harvested 538,000 tonnes of salmon that year, an absolute record for the entire period tracked.
On Wednesday, for the first time in the history of fishing, a vessel departed along the North Sea route carrying 10,000 tonnes of salmon, Krainy said. The load is headed for St. Petersburg, and is being shipped by the company Russkoye Morye. All told, Russia's 'northern capital' will receive a planned 45,000 tonnes of salmon.
"This is a less costly route than by railway," Krainy said, adding that the increase in the salmon catch is accompanied by a sharp increase in the cost of refrigerated railway transport. "Over the week, the refrigeration section became 10% more expensive and now, to deliver fish from Vladivostok to Moscow, it costs 1.6 million rubles," he said.
However, Krainy noted, fishing companies themselves are not all that concerned about normal shipment conditions. In March, "the railway offered them agreements with prices fixed at the March level, but with an advance of 15%," he said. "But not a single company did it," he said.
Despite the high tariffs, there is no shortage of rolling stock even so, Krainy said.
At the start of the fishing season, a kilogram of salmon in the Far East cost 65-75 rubles. Right now, the price for a humpbacked salmon has dropped to 12 rubles per kilo in Vladivostok and to 30 rubles in Kamchatka. "And the fish catch is such that we expect prices to go down further," Krainy said.
During the record year 2009, the price for humpbacked salmon was 58 rubles per kilo in the area surrounding Moscow, he said. "I think that there will be a similar price this year, a price of 58-65 rubles per kilogram is affordable for consumers and gives fisherman an opportunity to make money," he said.
