Viktor Zubkov's opening remarks:

Today at this traditional board meeting of the Federal Agency for Fishery we will summarise the results for last year and set the objectives for the year ahead.

In recent years, the industry has demonstrated consistently good results. Last year's results are no exception. Some 4.26 million tonnes of marine bioresources were caught last year, a 6% increase on the year before. That growth has continued in the first quarter of this year. Fishermen have already caught over one million tonnes, which is already higher than the figure for the same period in 2011. This gives us grounds for predicting good results for this year, at least as good as last year's.

These results could not have been achieved without the hard work of the fishermen. We spoke about this recently at the Third Russian Conference of Fishery Workers. Representatives of all the regions attended the conference. The fishermen raised many important issues, which were reflected in the conference resolution. The government will work with the agency staff who are present here today to resolve these problems.

The Government Commission on the Development of the Fisheries Industry, established five years ago, works under my supervision and is dealing with the key issues regarding the development of the industry.

We have developed a federal targeted programme and allocated decent funding for its implementation. Unfortunately, a substantial part of this money was not used up in the implementation of this programme in 2009-2010 and this was even more the case in 2011. The unused amount is around 20%, which is quite a lot. The reason is the industry was not ready to fully use all the allocated money. This could be due to dishonest contractors or the fact that ships of high enough quality cannot be built in time. Adjustments are being made to this programme and it will continue to be implemented in 2012-2013. The funds must be fully used up.

It is also important that we work on the government programme for the development of the industry until 2020. The management and staff of the agency need to consider this very seriously – firstly, because a significant sum of money (15-20 billion roubles) will be allocated and must be properly used in order for the industry to develop.

The new government programme will allow us to increase the competitiveness of Russian fishery products and maximize economic profits from the raw material yields, as well as to extend the range of products we offer and improve the quality of those products. These tasks are particularly important in the light of Russia's upcoming accession to the WTO. Another important issue concerns the construction of fishing vessels. We are going to hold an onsite meeting to discuss both this matter and also the upgrading and modernisation of the fleet and the onshore infrastructure.

We must also continue our work on upgrading the transport system and developing the product distribution network. There have been many instructions issued by me in this regard, including instructions to the Federal Antimonopoly Service and the law enforcement agencies. Agents and third parties are making big money, which causes retail prices to soar while fishermen sell their catches for pretty low prices. This work must continue in order for efficient logistics and trading systems to be developed. If there are any additional resolutions that must be made, including those of a legislative nature, the government will consider them. I am certain these tasks can only be solved through the joint efforts of the state, business and fishermen.

There were some positive results last year and it is obvious we are on the right track when it comes to developing the industry. We have created the basic conditions for maintaining this positive trend.