The meeting participants endorsed a plan developed by the Federal Agency for Fisheries to nationalise the fish channels of the Volga delta.

"I instruct Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo) to submit a draft resolution to the Russian government based on the results of the implementation of the planned measures. This work must be completed by the end of the year in order to maximise the amount of federal funding provided for the operation of 19 existing channels and the completion of the construction of three additional raceways. Over 200 million roubles will be allocated towards these purposes in 2012-2014," the first deputy prime minister said.

The full implementation of land reclamation in the Volga delta will increase the reserves of commercially valuable fish to 320,000-370,000 tonnes, which will increase annual catches by 20-25 tonnes, thus creating new jobs and more goods worth about one billion roubles.

The Commission members also discussed issues related to improving the legal regulations for the state environmental inspection of materials, which support the total allowable catches (TACs) of aquatic biological resources.

"The biological resources quota system has been operating reliably in recent years. Fishermen go out to sea in a timely manner, fish processors continuously process catches and employment has increased, which is improving social conditions in coastal regions," said Mr Zubkov. "However, the procedure for co-ordinating and approving TACs under state environmental inspection is lengthy and complicated."

In this regard, on the basis of the discussion, Mr Zubkov asked for Rosrybolovstvo to prepare proposals to optimise the procedure for TAC approval. At the same time, he said that any changes to the existing order should be required to undergo preliminary public discussion in the regions.

In conclusion, the meeting delegates discussed the delivery of Far Eastern fish products to European Russia via the Northern Sea Route and railways. The Commission members consider the development of maritime transport through the Northern Sea Route to be promising. At the end of the discussion, Rosrybolovstvo, in collaboration with the Ministry of Transport and the Federal Tariff Service, was delegated to study the issue of the optimisation of tariffs for icebreakers, in order to increase transport of fish products. The Commission was also instructed to develop a proposal to introduce seasonal tariff reductions for the transport of fish by rail.