"The fishing season is going well. The task set for this year is to top the 4.3 million tonne threshold excluding aquaculture and recreational fishing," the head of the Federal Fisheries Agency Rosrybolovstvo, Andrei Krainy, said at a meeting of the fisheries agency in Moscow Monday.
Russian fishermen caught 4.27 million tonnes of fish and other bioresources (excluding aquaculture and recreational fishing) in 2012, according to adjusted figures, he said.
"The forecasts of Russian scientists on the 2013 catch look rather optimistic and this year is a so-called salmon year and at least 320,000 tonnes of salmon is projected," he said, adding that this figure will probably be corrected up.
The fisheries agency predicts that the catch will increase in the Azov-Black Sea and Volga-Caspian basins and in the convention fishing areas and foreign country zones.
The fishing industry needs to increase its catch in such a way for there to "be more fish in different purses." He spoke about the need to upgrade fishing vessels as soon as possible and to switch to modern fishing gear. "A clear example is the capelin fishing season, during which Norwegian fishermen caught 100% of their quotas while Russian fishermen only about 64%."
Krainy said it was important to more fully meet the bioresource quotas that are allocated annually. Only about 70% of the overall available catch quota was met in 2012.
Krainy said 2012 was the first year in the last 10 years where fish exports fell, which enabled supplies to the domestic market to increase by 70,000 to 100,000 tonnes. According to preliminary figures from the Russian Statistics Agency Rosstat, Russia exported 1.67 million tonnes of fish, down 4.5% on 2011. Fish and fish product imports grew 3.1% to 945,200 tonnes.
Turnover for fishing organizations climbed 8% in constant prices to 136 billion rubles.