Russian fish industry turnover grows to record 1.1 trln rubles in 2024 - Rosrybolovstvo head

MOSCOW. March 20 (Interfax) - The turnover of Russia's fish industry reached a record 1.1 trillion rubles in 2024, Federal Fisheries Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) head Ilya Shestakov said.

"In 2024 the turnover of businesses was a record 1.1 trillion rubles, and profit was 173 billion rubles. In 2014, turnover totalled 170 billion rubles and profit about 27 billion rubles," Shestakov said at parliamentary hearings in the State Duma on the 20-year anniversary of the passage of the law "On fishing and conservation of aquatic biological resources."

Tax revenue from the industry has also surged, he said. "In 2014, tax revenues were about 10 billion rubles, in 2023 more than 67 billion rubles," Shestakov said. In 2024, the federal budget received a total of more than 227.4 billion rubles from the sector.

The situation in the sector began to change dramatically with the launch of the investment quotas program, as "investments acquired a constant and systemic nature," Shestakov said.

"Fishers were granted the right to catch certain amounts of aquatic bioresources for 15 years with the obligation to invest in the sector. The investment quota mechanism became key for the large-scale reform of the fishing industry and the revival of Russian shipbuilding," Shestakov said.

About 300 billion rubles was raised in the initial phase of the investment quotas program, which was approved in 2016, and 39 vessels and 25 fish processing plants were built.

Shestakov said that in 2023 the implementation of the first phase of the program continued and the second phase began. There are plans to build 31 vessels, including 23 crab fishing boats, four logistics centers and 11 processing plants as part of the second phase.

The program was expanded in 2019 to include quotas for crab fishing. The first and second phases of their distribution took place in 2019 and 2022.

"The mechanism of investment quotas for used in Russia for the first time and there is nothing of the like in world practice," Shestakov said.

The president of fishing industry association VARPE, German Zverev said at the hearings that the principle of assigning long-term quotas galvanized and consolidated the sector.

"In 2004, there wasn't a single major holding company in the sector. By 2012, there were already ten, they comprise 72 businesses with revenue of 92 billion rubles. In 2024, 20 holdings comprising 426 business, with combined revenue of 465 billion rubles, operated in the sector," Zverev said.

The government earned 455 billion rubles from the sale of 1,282 lots at fish auctions in 2015-2025, he said.