(seafood.com) Moscow - The Russian government plans to start an active development of domestic fish processing, as part of the recently approved 'Strategy of Food Processing in Russia until 2020'.
The current situation in the Russian fish processing remains difficult in view of the government, because up to 70% of imported fish to the country is Russian fish, which was processed abroad, mainly in China.
As part of the strategy, the government plans to start an active building of fish processing facilities in all federal districts of the country and especially the Far Eastern Federal District, which will account for 40% of total fish processing capacities in the country by 2020.
At the same time the share of the North-West Federal District (Barents Sea) will account for 34% of Russia's total fish processing, while the share of the Southern district 4%.
The strategy also involves modernization of more than 400 domestic fish processing enterprises. The most intensive development to be carried out in around 150 fish processing plants in DFO. According to state plans, total volume of investments in the Russian fish processing industry by 2020 will amount to 36 billion rubles (USD $1.1 billion), of which 28 billion rubles will be investment funds raised from the companies and their partners.
The implementation of these plans is expected to help to increase the share of Russian production in the global market of fish processing products up to 0.83% in 2016 and to 0.94% by 2020.
At the same time, the new strategy has already been criticized by leading Russian experts in the field of fish processing. According to the experts of the Russian Pollock Association, the document contained inaccurate information about the current status of Russian fish processing industry, and sets wrong industry targets for the future.
According to German Zverev, head of the Association, one of the main focuses in the new strategy is paid to the development of canning segment of the Russian fish processing, which neither consistent with consumer preferences of Russian customers nor with global trends of fish processing.