Russian fishermen are now restricted of selling crab to Japan and China without a certificate from the Russian Federal Agency for Fisheries (Rosrybolovstvo). The relevant decree was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev last week.
The agency hopes to gradually get rid of poaching sea products, the volumes of which have increased dramatically with the official figures of Russia and Japan on the volumes of Russian crab deliveries differing by more than 20 times.
In the first half of 2013, only 603 metric tons of Russian crab was officially exported, according to the Russian customs service. But the Japanese Ministry of Finance registered imports of 13,800 metric tons.
However, patterns are starting to change, following the signing of a Russia-Japan agreement to combat illegal, unregulated, unreported (IUU) fishing, a representative of the Eastern Association of Crab Catchers said.
For instance, in the first six months of this year volume red king crab exported to Japan was five times higher than last year. Registered shipments amounted to 8,600 metric tons compared, while snow crab showed minimum supplies of 5,200 metric tons in last ten years.
"No one wants to take the risk because of snow crab, the cost of which in recent years have rarely exceeded $4 (€3) to $5 (€3.8) per kilogram. Instead, king crab with a price of $12 (€9) to $16 (€12) per kilogram has become more tempting prey", a source at the association said.
The Russian Fishery Agency confirmed a sharp rise in illegal shipments of red king. "In the last 1.5 years, before the entry into force of Russian-Japanese and Russian-Chinese agreements on combating IUU fishing, a huge stream of poaching crab swamped the ports of the Japanese island of Hokkaido", Alexander Saveljev, the head of the public relations center at Rosrybolovstvo, said.
Russian experts expect the introduction of control certificates will both sharply decline volumes of IUU fishing and significantly raise the prices for crab of Russian origin.
"It is difficult to predict how these prices will rise," Saveljev said. "But it's highly likely the price hike will happen, as the growth of the supplies of poaching crab has led to a sharp decline in prices and to big losses of legitimate suppliers.
"The cost of legally caught crab dropped by three times in last 18 months from $25 (€18.8) to $28 (€21) per kilogram."
The Russian Far East region has the world's major stock of crab. According to official data about 50 to 60 percent of the Russian catch is exported, however, experts said this figure reaches 90 percent, taking into account illegal fishing and the "gray" crab supplies.
According to Rosrybolovstvo statistics, the 2012 crab catch of Russian origin amounted to 44.2 million metric tons, of which 26.7 million tons were exported.
In the first half of the 2013 some 22.9 million tons of crab were harvested with about 14 million tons delivered to the external market.
The Russian legal crab catching is estimated at $1 billion (€749.9 million) to $1.2 billion (€899.9 million) with the export share reaching $500 (€375) to $600 million (€449.9 million).