Norwegian cod. (Photo Credit: Jean Gaumy/Norwegian Seafood Council)
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
Thursday, September 11, 2014, 06:30 (GMT + 9)
A Russian fish-processing firm has filed a lawsuit against the Government with the Supreme Court due to the resolution to ban import of fish and other foodstuffs from Norway, EU, US and other countries. The firm states this measure is harming its business.
Murmansk Fish Combinat executive director Mikhail Zub considers the trade ban coming into effect last month to be amended to allow his company to continue buying now-outlawed fish from Norway, Russia's biggest salmon and herring supplier, The Moscow Times reported.
Zub deems that Norwegian supplies are the only alternative, since Chilean fish, for instance, are more expensive and come frozen, which makes them less suitable for further processing, while domestic production is unable to meet the demand.
The CEO explained that the situation is aggravated by the fact that his firm can only take live fish transported by special vessels, and nearly all of them come from foreign countries.
"We took out bank loans and fully modernized our factory last year, designed to process fresh fish coming from Norwegian waters. With a ban in place we have now stopped production," Zub claimed.
The company, which is capable of producing 70,000 tons of processed fish products annually, buys raw fish at Norwegian auctions and has already signed a contract for the purchase of 31,000 tones of cod, capelin, pollock, haddock, and herring for the second half of this year. But the plans were thwarted in early August when Russia banned the import of certain food groups, including that of live fish from Norway, EU, USA, Australia and Canada.
Another result of the ban has been the price hikes for fish, which according to the Russian Fish Company, one of the largest salmon distributors in the country, had almost doubled since the measure has come into force.
Nevertheless, Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview that the government had carefully examined the possible negative effects the ban would have on Russian business.
Medvedev also stated that some further changes to restrictions could be made, as was the case with baby fish, which were excluded from the ban after the government discovered that domestic fish production could not be boosted without imported hatchlings.
Besides, the state fishery agency Rosrybolovstvo considers live fish processing is “a promising industry,” but admits that this technology is not well suited for the production of aquatic biological resources at a considerable distance from the place of coastal processing, BarentsNova informed.
The Agency is ready to take measures to increase the supply of fish for domestic coastal processing plants in the Murmansk region.
Referring to the lawsuit Deputy Head of the Federation Council’s Committee for Constitutional Legislation Konstantin Dobrynin stressed that the fact that someone has claimed such a file is “unprecedented” and “welcome,” the latter because it shows that “the subjects of the Russian legal system are not afraid to speak out against the state itself,” the Barents Observer reported.
The court meeting will be held on 11 November, according to the Supreme Court’s web site.