SummaryNumber 4 (12) 2008 |
Andrey Krainiy: who can deprive us of a possibility to put ahead ambitious tasks?
More than one year ago Andrey Krainiy became the head of the Russian fishery industry. Now he tells the «Fishnews» about some ardent issues Russian fishermen should know about.
One of the latest events of great significance is the adoption of the Concept of the Russian fishery industry development until 2020. The period will be divided into three stages: until 2012, 2017 and 2020. There are planned to be built either to reconstruct the facilities for the reproduction of marine living resources and four infrastructure projects to restore precious bio species in 27 regions. Also it is planned the construction, reconstruction and technical re-equipment of 8 production-innovation centers by the leading fishery scientific-research institutes. The plans envisage the building of 27 scientific-research vessels, 8 vessels for fish reproduction purposes, 2 patrol vessels. The measures planned would permit even by 2013 to increase the share of home produced fish at the local market up to 80%, while to-day it is 62.5%.
We have prepared the draft of the Government decree on subsidies for the fuel. We are asking for 4.7 billion of Rubles for fishermen, who deliver and sell their fish on the territory of the Russian Federation.
At present further amendments to the Federal Law «On fishing» are being regarded. Rather important is the wording of the term «coastal fishery», which was omitted in the Federal Law № 333. Terms «aquaculture» and «production fish breeding» are also to be concretized.
As for the trade with fish products through Stock Exchanges – I’d like to remind, that the preparation of a bill on Stock Exchanges trade is underway at the moment. So, our plans should be coordinated and combined with the realities in this sector of economy.
Speaking about the establishment of the State corporation «Rosrybflot» – it will be a State joint stock company on the basis of the «Arkhangelsk trawling fleet» company and the Murmansk fishing port, where 100% shares will belong to the State. Its main task will be to return our fishery vessels to the World Ocean. The «Rosrybflot» should «stake» our right for the resources in those areas of the ocean, where we used to work in 70-80s last century. The historic principle is: if you don’t fish – you loose the right.
Fishery community is looking for new decisions
The International fishery congress alongside with a specialized fair-show, «Pacific Future Fishery» will be held in Vladivostok in the beginning of September for the third time in a row. On the eve of the event the Head of the fishery department of the Primorsky territory Administration Igor Uleyskiy tells the «Fishnews» correspondent about the agenda and the participants of the Congress.
- We cannot influence in a certain way upon the decisions of those countries to participate to the Congress, either make them adopt one or another decision. All our decisions are of recommendation character, both for state bodies, and for fishery community, however the analysis shows the decisions we introduce into resolutions of the Congress – are implemented into practice. The theme of the Congress is the development of international cooperation in the sphere of effective use of marine living resources. For example, a year ago neither fishermen at the Congress was telling about the cease of production of Alaska Pollack headed/gutted. But this spring, the Pollack Association raised this issue.
- So, the Congress is another possibility to meet, to understand the requirements of the market, to discuss conditions, insisting on certain ones and adopting those proposed. The Congress is the special site for the purpose. Except for the catching and fish processing companies there will be represented State power bodies at the Congress. We are waiting for the arrival of the Head of the Federal Fishery Agency, Andrey Krainiy, representatives of the State Duma, Federation Council, fishery science. Sure we have invited to come to Vladivostok the First Vice-prime minister, Viktor Zubkov, if his schedule permits. Traditionally, the Governor of the Primorsky territory, Serguey Darkin, will deliver his well grounded report at the Congress.
We say: Vladivostok is the site, where you can freely discuss your problems, work out common decisions contributing to their solutions.
Less human hands – more machinery
Specialists of leading producers of processing equipment and machinery tell the «Fishnews» about their latest achievements.
Engineers of the «Cabinplant» company pay special attention at the process of fish products defrost. Vice director of the «Cabinplant A/S», Van Drud Hanse tells about the module defrost systems, which are dominating now in Europe. The head of another producer of defrosters, German «EMF GmbH» representation in Vladivostok, Valentina Ognetova, tells that their defrosters are widely used in the process of the Squid cold skinning. Also the smoking cameras and digesters by the «EMF GmbH» are actively used at Russian fish processing facilities.
Fritz Kahapka, project manager of one more German company, Schaller Lebensmitteltechnik, tells about the technology of injecting fish fillets with the special brine to preserve the high quality and to obtain higher production yield. As an example he mentioned the largest pelagic fish processing factory, «Pelagic Skagen» in Denmark, which processes at an average one thousand tons of fish a day.
Modern technologies at the fish processing market are ensured with the sophisticated systems of control and accounting of productivity, – the sales manager of the«Marel Food Systems», Dmitriy Kotlyar tells.
Alongside with the high quality raw fish and the modern equipment and machinery, one of the main precondition for the production of competitive fish products is the hygienic requirement. «SonoSteam» company developed and patented a new and effective method to reduce the microbiological activity on the surface of food products, which envisages the use of special ultrasonic nozzles.
Innovations by the world leaders of fish processing technologies are actively being applied in the work of the «Rybtechcenter» scientific-production corporation, Viktor Dorovskikh tells.
Coarse of Russia: from raw materials to innovations
President of the Pollack Association, German Zverev tells about the trends at the world fishery market and the international experience in management of fishery industry on the eve of the Third international fishery congress in Vladivostok.
- At present the catching of mass target species in the world is at the maximum possible level, it’s possible to increase the catching scale only at the account of redistribution of the formed national shares. At the same time there is no a unified system of views of an optimum form of the fishery industry management.
- The statistics confirm a close dependence between the level of oil prices and the volume of the world fishing, with that the combined capability of the world fishery fleet exceeds twice as much the biologically possible catching outputs.
- Another trend is the growth of aquaculture sector, alongside with that there is growing the level of concentration, the share of artiginal fishery is decreasing. There is underway in the world the process of accelerated globalization of scientific knowledge on function and development of marine eco-systems.
- Fishery complex of Russia is an integral part of the bionomic complex of the world economy. Thus the scenarios of its development can be based only on the ground of universal trends of development of this complex with the account of the global experience. We can suppose three main scenarios: resources-oriented, technologically guided and innovative. Which is an optimal for Russia? In the real practice all three of them are intercrossed and, to a certain extent they represent a unique scenario of the market forms’ multiplicity. But n a certain period of time only one of them could be the leading one and the choice is determined by the specifying source of competition advantages. At the moment those advantages by 80% are specified by the raw materials’ base, i.e. by the natural capital of Russia. The potential of the industrial and human capital is used by only 20%.
The task is to increase the industrial and the human capital in the Russian fishery industry development.
«Rybtechcenter»: new phase of development
Scientific-production corporation «Rybtechcenter» joint stock company, based in Kaliningrad celebrates its 45th anniversary as a leading producer of fish processing machinery in Russia. Since 1963 there have been developed more than 400 types of technological equipment, which received avowal in Germany, Bulgaria, Cuba, Poland, Singapore, etc. Many items have been exhibited at various fishery industry events and many times were awarded with diplomas and medals.
Assortment of technological equipment and machinery contains more than one hundred specialized items for food processing among them defrost devices, processing and fish filetting machines, cans’ sterilization, etc. The most famous product by the «Rybtechcenter» is the machine for fish packing up into cans of ИНА115 type, which has no analogues in the world. At present more sophisticated ИНА 115М machine is being tested, it has twice as much productivity (up to 120 cans a minute), design works are underway to develop a machine for packing up fish into shaped cans.
Specialists of the company can perform at all the stages of installation and commissioning of the technological lines. With that the machinery and equipment reach new level of quality and resources’ saving.
Cooperation for the sake of results
Small enterprises especially those engaged in coastal fishery are depending from the nature whims either various officials much more than those larger ones. Salmon season is their main hope. The only one way out is consolidation, that is the opinion of the founders of the Association of Poronaisky fishery businessmen, which unites 28 small catching companies. The positive changes within the last year have been clearly seen: the Association relieved the fishermen of their administrative burden. This year the permissions to catch are obtained faster, there was established the centralized supply of catching squads with fishing gears, transportation of the fish caught.
The core of the Association is the fish processing complex of Serguey Renjin, the private entrepreneur. It has been present at the market for more than ten years, engaged in deep processing of not only the Salmons, but other species of sea fish and Squid. The processing shops are producing fresh frozen, smoked, salted products, various delicacies in vacuum packs at modern processing machinery, including the US automatic processing line by «Carnitek» company. The total production capacity of the complex amounts to 170 tons a day.
Plans of the Association include the further development of the production related to the construction of the well organized system of the high quality raw fish delivery from the remote areas of Sakhalin. For the purpose negotiations with US and European companies are underway to select and supply the optimum equipment and machinery, first of all the liquid ice generators. The next step there could be the construction of a new cold storage of 1,700 tons capability with the help of German specialists.
«DIGI Russia»: fish can speak
Russian food industry is actively gaining the pace. Especially clear it can be seen in fish processing: old facilities are being modernized, while the new ones are being built in accordance with all the international standards of quality. But even the best quality product needs good packaging in order to create necessary image for the producer. The success depends upon the coordinated work of all the production line elements. One must also remember about remaining within certain confines of the profitability.
«DIGI Russia» company is a classic sample in realizing complexly coordinated projects. Initially the company was specialized in deliveries of weighing and marking equipment of the Japanese producer Teraoka Seiko (DIGI). Now the company can propose any kind of equipment of European or Asian producers. Thus, «DIGI Russia» company can assist in solving the problem of quality verification with the use of equipment by the Japanese producer Anritsu, among them metal detectors and X-ray systems to detect alien objects in food products, as well as the systems of conveyer weighing.
Another popular issue among the food producers is the packaging with modified atmosphere. Europeans long ago have started to equip the food production lines with devices to check for tightness and to control the quality of gas mixtures. «DIGI Russia» company offers a full spectrum of equipment check for tightness varying from hand testers to the conveyer systems of quality control by the Danish company «DanSensor».
So, we have: quality control, weighing, packaging and marking. «DIGI Russia» company may propose any solution.
Wrap makes the product
Today Russian consumers more and more prefer the quality home products, still the foreign fish products are widely represented at the shop shelves. Why? One of the explanations there could be the fact the foreign products are properly, handy and nicely packed and wrapped. It depends, according to our experts, upon both the type of the product and the packing/wrapping machinery.
According to the head of the vacuum packing equipment department of the «DIGI Russia» company, Alexey Egorov, of great importance for the fish products’ producers there is the possibility of technical support and maintenance of the packing machinery within shortest periods of time. Our expert from the «AGRO-3» company, the head of the packing equipment department, Alexey Klimanov, considers the priority is the complex solution of the production tasks.
A representative of the «Sealpac» company, Gerald Binder, pays attention at the specific conditions of the market requirements. Sure that the majority of clients, thanks to the use of new packing/wrapping solutions are going to become pioneers at the market, thus leaving their competitors well behind.
According to the head of the packing equipment section of the «Henkovac-Russia» company limited, Nikita Mitropolskiy, at present the brand’s presence and the quotation frequency in the global net could play a determining role in the clients’ search efforts.
Modern packing/wrapping materials and technologies are very different now and permit to process any product. The polymers types of packing/wrapping are the most required at the moment. Another important condition to increase the shelf life of products is the use of vacuum technologies, however such a method cannot be applied to all the products.
Small size companies should pay their attention at tray-cealers. They are much less expensive than the thermoforming lines, which could not ensure the short term return of funds invested at low production rates. Sure big companies should purchase thermoforming lines, which ensure the maximum productivity.
Innovations in the camp of packing/wrapping materials and technologies are the use of modified gas or atmosphere environment (МАР), as well as the use of multi-layers and combined films, multi-components packing materials, including those foiled ones. Those new technologies permit to significantly increase the shelf life of fish products without decreasing their quality level.
«FOL»: «We keep the quality level»
Production of the Primorye «Fishing Gears Factory (FOL)», located in the settlement Podyapolskiy, enjoys Russian fishermen well-deserved consideration. The factory, established in 1995, today is maintaining leading positions among fishing gears and ropes producers. It has such fishery industry giants as TURNIF, BAMR and Kamchatka based Lenin kolkhoz as long term partners.
Nowadays the modern equipment and machinery is being used at the factory. Last year there was installed a new extrusion line, which permits to produce the polyethylene thread out of granules.
The General Director of the «Fishing Gears Factory» joint stock company, Eugeniy Mazur, tells: «Practically all the positions of the assortment are presented in our product line, Our motto is «Reliability. Quality. Stability. Development.» – which is completely reflecting the policy of the enterprise. We are not striving for super-profits, but we choose a long term cooperation, delivering to fishermen good quality and reliable fishing gears in short terms and at reasonable price. Some fishery companies are oriented at Saury catching, others are catching Salmon and Alaska Pollack, their needs are different and we should find a proper balance, thus we work with our clients individually. The leading position of the factory is due also to the rich experience of the FOL managers and specialists, acquired at sea.
«Preobrazhenie Base of Trawling Fleet» joint stock company
«Preobrazhenie Base of Trawling Fleet (PBTF)» is the leading company of the Far East fishery industry with a multiform structure, including catching and processing units, an own ship-repair complex, fishing gears production shop, etc.
The main activity of the PBTF is the fishery conducted by its fleet of big and medium trawlers and «Vsevolod Sibirtsev» mother-ship in Okhotsk, Bering and Japanese seas. According to statistics in Primorye every tenth ton of raw fish is being caught by the PBTF, every fifth can in the Russian Far East is being produced at the PBTF cannery. PBTF production has been participating many times to various international exhibitions, last year it was awarded with gold medals at the Third international exhibition «Rybpromexpo» in Moscow.
Participants to the General meeting of shareholders of the PBTF held recently, acknowledged the work of the company a success last year, the net profit exceeded the level of 2006 by 102 million of Rubles and amounted to 119 million. The production output of fish products grew by 11%.
The program of fleet modernization and the purchase of new vessels is of special importance for the PBTF. Last summer contracts were signed with the Black sea shipyard in Nikolayev, Ukraine, for two big autonomous trawlers-refrigerators (BATM). It is planned next year to send them to fishing grounds. In the meantime the PBTF vessels are going to use the quotas allocated this year – 14 thousand MT of Herring, own quotas of 6 thousand tons of Saury plus more 6 thousand MT to buy from other users. The Russian Ministry of defense is going to buy from the PBTF quite 6.4 million of canned Saury.
In order to create a closed chain of catching and processing in 2000 the PBTF constructed the Preobrazhenie fish processing factory, which except for canned fish and preserves production is also engaged in aquaculture activities. Right across the Preobrazhenie settlement, in Sokolovsky bay the specialists are placing the Scallops spat for growing up. There is also opened a processing shop to produce Sea-urchin roe for the local market. All the aquaculture activities are coordinated with the TINRO-Center scientists. The main directions for the joint works include the reproduction of the Pacific sea-cucumber, commonly known as the «sea ginseng». Another joint project of the PBTF and the TINRO-Center is the establishment of the Lazovsky bio-technopark.
Sakhalin fish farmers unite efforts
Within last years more 17 private enterprises there have been added to 16 existing State-owned salmon hatcheries. Together they ensure more than 85% of salmon fry production in the Russian Federation. At an average a salmon hatchery lets out in a season some 20-30 million salmon fries. With it requires up to 120 million Rubles of investments, as not all the hatcheries are in possess of fishing grounds. A significant part of the funds is required to be invested into purchase of a costly unique equipment, to import it from Japan, i.e. import taxes are added to the value of the equipment. That means that the construction and commission of additional hatcheries seems to be a problem.
Poaching is another huge problem for salmon hatcheries. Only 3-4 State inspectors fall on a dozen of Sakhalin spawning rivers, while there are needed some 10-15 inspectors per each river.
Anyhow the results of the Sakhalin salmon hatcheries are quite visible. The approaches of salmon became more stable, the catching outputs at Sakhalin and at Kuril islands are growing.
There is needed the adoption of the Federal law «On aquaculture». Sakhalin fish farmers are strongly interested in the quality of the future law, that’s why they decided to unite their efforts for the joint work with the Federal Fishery Agency which is preparing the draft of the document. According to Anatoliy Murgin, the Chairman of the Association of the Sakhalin region salmon hatcheries, which includes some 15 private enterprises of the region, there was established a constructive dialogue with the State body and the mutual understanding as for key issues was achieved.
Saturation of market – far for ideal
General Director of the «Russian Fish Company» Dmitri Dangauer tells: As of today the fish and sea products consumption in Russia grows, explained by the growth of the Russian population welfare. Within the latest years we can observe the trend of the growing consumption of precious species of fish. However the faster growing pace of consumption is being shown not by the whole frozen fish, but the various kinds of fillets. So in 2007 we started to sell under the own trade mark fillets of Hake, Pangasius, Tilapia, Alaska Pollack. We strongly promote the trade with those products in various regional trade nets. As a whole our country is transferring from the ranks of those consuming the cheap species of fish to another status, where the population can afford buying precious species.
Within the structure of the «Russian Sea (Russkoye More)» Group of companies, the “Russian Fish Company is making part of , there is a modern fish processing factory which produces more than 80 products, this fall we’ll present a number of new ones. Also last year we acquired the Segozersky trout farm, earlier this year the first delivery from the farm was made. The success of the «Russian Fish Company» is explained by the devotedness to the business and the 10 years long team spirit.
Fishing the Salmons
Kamchatka is one of the rare places in the world where the Salmons’ spawning places were preserved in their original shape. River Bolshaya (Big) is the largest river in the West coast of Kamchatka and the second as for its length at the peninsula. There are coming to spawn some 40 thousand species of King salmon, more 300 thousand species of Sockeye, in certain years – more than 100 thousand Species of Keta, more than 200 thousand species of Silver salmon and up to 20 million species of Pink salmon.
The fishing ground at the Bolshaya river after the contest was given to the «Fishery collective «Narody Severa (Northern folks)», one of the largest fishery companies at Kamchatka, specialized in various kinds of sea products and especially in production of salted Salmon caviar.
General Director of the company, Serguey Polukarov tells about the salmon season. The first Salmons approaches were fixed this year sometime on July 20, but by this time the fishermen of the company were fully ready and having obtained in time the permission started to fish. At present the fish processing facility of the company is freezing up to 150 tons of fish a day, producing some 7 tons of fish-mill and about 8 tons of salted Salmon roe. All the products are meant for the local market.
At the moment there 350 persons working at the facility, but the work is a seasonal one, when the season is over only 100 jobs are left.
The main problems of the company are to obtain the quotas and permissions in order to start the work in time.
INVESTFLOT: 15 years of insured sailing
15 years at the insurance market have brought a well-deserved consideration to the insurance company «Investflot» not only at home but also abroad. The first office of the company started its work in Samara, in 1993. Within the period until present days the company became one of the largest Russian insurers of vessels and ship-owners’ liability. The director of the «Investflot» insurance company representation in Vladivostok, Lyudmila Papysheva tells about main directions of insurance the company proposes to the clients, among them insurance of vessels, ship-owners’ liability, i.e. P&I (Protection and Indemnity, Loss of Hire and FD&D insurance. Also the company insures various kinds of risks, cases of obligations’ non-fulfillment, cargoes, land transportation means, etc. Mainly the clients of the company are the corporate bodies, however since 2005 natural persons are proposed services to insure motor vehicles, motor boats and yachts, other private property.
The «Investflot» insurance company pays a great attention to the life insurance of sailors. Since March 1, 2005 the «Investflot» insurance company as a first one has been acknowledged by the Ministry of transportation of Japan as a reliable liability insurer for ships visiting Japanese ports. In 2007 the «Investflot» insurance company paid totally $420 thousand as insurance indemnity. Within 2007-2008 the «Investflot» insurance company at the South Korean and Japan claims issued two warranty obligations for the total sum of $603 thousand.
Shrimp catchers gained a victory again
The first experience of participation to the international exhibition «Seafood Russia 2008» in Moscow for the Far East shrimp catching company turned out to be a success – the company, «Istok-AB» won a gold medal.
119 companies from 21 countries have presented their products at the 5th specialized sea food event, held in June at the Crocus Expo exhibition center. More than three thousand visitors attended the event, among them exporters, importers, distributors, producers of equipment and machinery for fish processing, etc.
The «wild» Northern and Coonstripe shrimp presented by the «Istok-AB» at the exhibition left behind the «artificial» shrimps from Bangladesh, Vietnam, India, Norway, China, Spain, Chile, Sri-Lanka and some other countries and was awarded with the gold medal for quality. The company has already eight medals, diplomas of highest grade, other rewarding materials.
«Istok-AB» joint stock company is one of the few companies to conquer the local Russian market. Nowadays the company is a leading producer of fresh frozen and boiled frozen shrimps in the Far East of Russia. The assortment of the company includes Northern, Coonstripe, Humpback shrimp products. And each product deserves gold medals!
In a single bound
Vessels’ supply with provision and all necessary materials is an integral part of the preparation for the trip in the port. Supply companies are always ready to render their help in this sphere.
The General Director of the «Ship Agents (Sudovye Agenty)» joint stock company, Alexander Slyusarev tells about the main forms of his company activities, the general supply and the delivery of items under the supervision of the Marine Register. Ship-owners should act wisely at choosing their suppliers.
To start from January 1, 2009 all the fish resources caught by Russian fishermen should be duly delivered to the Customs territory of the Russian Federation. That will result in certain problems for ship-owners and the main one of them is the problem of insufficient cold-storage facilities. Thus, the unique way out in this situation, before sufficient capabilities would be created, there could be a reasonable system of vessels’ processing without necessary offloading of the catching. Another measure there could an intensification of fishery vessels’ inspections in the fishing grounds.
A great role in processing vessels at their arrival/departure there could play ship agent companies, which are able to optimize this process by maximum reducing the demurrage period in ports. Far more complicated is the problem of the fate of fish, delivered to a port in such a situation for further exportation, as the Fish Stock Exchanges issue still remains a «black hole» for the local market players.
The State, realizing that is regarding a possibility of introducing obligatory insurance of ship-owners’ liability, supported by the hugest Russian insurance company, Rosgosstrah. The director of the Far East branch of the «Sogaz» insurance company, Alexey Chasov, believes that a reasonable to make ship-owners insure their liability in an obligatory way.
Thus, according to our experts, obligatory insurance of ship-owners’ liability is a reasonable and a useful thing for the State.
Sea aquaculture and ecology of coastal waters
Viktor Markovtsev, the leading scientist of the TINRO-Center aquaculture section tells about the history and the future of aquaculture in the Primorsky territory.
The most fruitful period for the Primorsky territory sea aquaculture development used to be the end of 70-s and the first half of 80-s of the last century. A special department of seven laboratories and 120 scientists was functioning within the TINRO-Center, the sea aquaculture research station was organized at the Popov island. However in the beginning of 90-s due to economic problems the operational aquaculture farms mainly stopped their work.
At present the aquaculture activity in the Primorsky territory is represented by minimal volumes of Scallops, Sea-weeds and Mussels farming. The total square of aquaculture farms is about 10 thousand hectares, in 2006 there were harvested 818.1 tons of Sea-weeds (Laminaria), 479.4 tons of Scallops and 41.4 tons of Mussels.
As for the prospects of aquaculture development in the Primorsky territory, according to the TINRO scientists the total square for sea food farming could be up to 3,758 sq.km, while the production output could amount to 618 thousand tons.
There must be mentioned the issue of sea aquaculture farms and the level of the coastal waters pollution. As soon as in the Primorsky territory neither sea bay can be named an environmentally clean, the best solution for could be the creation of poly-culture farms. It means that the mollusks breeding farms could be combined with the Sea-cucumber (Trepang) harvesting, and Sea-weeds plantations could ensure the production of Grey-sea urchin.
