Russia sends first fish oil shipment to Chile in December - VARPE

MOSCOW. Dec 21 (Interfax) - Russia sent its first shipment of fish oil to Chile in early December.

"We have a precedent. We shipped containers of fish oil to Chile for the first time. By the end of the year we will ship about 80 more tonnes," Herman Zverev, president of the All-Russian Fishing Industry Association (VARPE) said at a briefing on Thursday in Moscow.

As for the export of these products in general, the volumes are still insignificant, although this year they are larger than last year," he said. Fish oil is a by-product of fish processing. So far, we are talking about hundreds, or maybe a thousand tonnes. The market situation is good," he said, saying that new production enterprises for these products have opened in the Far East.

There is also a good situation on the fishmeal market, which will reach 30-35,000 tonnes per year, he said.

The head of the association predicts that exports of fish products this year will remain at last year's level of about 2.3 million tonnes.

Russia is maintaining "a fairly good, stable position with exports," he said. "We are confident that next year, our position will remain in at least four key segments of the world market." At the same time, Zverev said that Russian ranks first in the premium segment of the crab market (two-thirds of the market), in the pollock market and the cod market. These are very large markets. The cod market is estimated at $6 billion, while premium crabs is at almost $10 billion, he said.

In addition, Russian ranks second in the herring market, which is worth about $600 million.

Commenting on issues related to "exchange rate" export duties (fish products are subject to them), Zverev said that VARPE is currently preparing proposals for adjusting these duties in relation to some types of fish products. "We are working very seriously on several product groups. Not on all of them, but on those that, from our point of view, are now most vulnerable to export duties, especially in cases where there is a combination of import duties there [in the buyer country] and export duties here," he said. "And when they converge, it makes the export price sometimes deliberately uncompetitive."

Zverev said that proposals are being prepared for three product groups.