Addressing the meeting Mr Zubkov recalled that pursuant to the amendments to the Russian laws as of January 1, 2009 the catch must be delivered to the customs territory of the Russian Federation. By that time, he said, it is necessary to create conditions for the development of the port infrastructure, and modernisation of coastal and processing capacity. Meanwhile, Mr Zubkov  noted, the package of measures aimed at developing fish processing capacity was behind schedule. "Time is running out," Mr Zubkov said.

First  Deputy Prime Minister also said that he had visited Murmansk the day before, where he looked at the practical implementation of the Government's Decree that introduced the notification requirement of  the custom clearance procedure for fishing vessels and catches in the Russian ports and set harsh deadlines for all the supervisory and control procedures.

Mr Zubkov noted that on the whole the deadline of three hours for inspecting vessels was being complied with, but there were still many issues to be hammered out. According to Mr Zubkov, "inspections are conducted in a blanket way, 100% are inspected, every box of fish is checked, and that takes time."