Vladimir Putin's opening speech:

Good afternoon, colleagues.

Our meeting is devoted to problems of developing our national fisheries sector.

Russia is a major sea power, and that is one of its competitive advantages.

We must not forget that the lives of hundreds of thousands of people depend largely on this sector's stable operation, especially in the Far East and the Far North, where people simply have no income source other than fishing.

At the same time, many problems have accumulated in this sector. We must work on systematically resolving them.

I remind you that in 2007-2008 our efforts were mainly focussed on forming intelligible and transparent rules of the game for our fishing industries, on raising their investment appeal, competitiveness, and on encouraging the rational use of water bioresources.

A simplified customs clearing system for vessels and goods in seaports was introduced, and unnecessary administrative obstacles presented by a variety of inspection agencies were removed.

The allocation regulations for fish quotas changed significantly. Now they are applied exclusively to domestic fishermen on a long-term basis of up to 10 years. In addition, quotas on 230 types of fish have been removed completely. Anyone who wants to will be able to fish them.

The rates of charges applied to the use of water bioresources were lowered by 85%. This rate will apply to single-industry town and village enterprises, and also to organisations for whom fishing and fish processing provide no less than 70% of their income.

The fishing fleet has begun to return to Russian ports. In particular, those companies whose vessels underwent wholesale repair and modernisation in foreign dockyards have been given the opportunity to move them into Russia's customs territory without paying VAT and customs duties.

And finally, the requirement for the catch to be delivered to Russian customs territory came into effect on January 1. This measure aims to encourage domestic fish processing, and will help us develop our exports beyond the primitive export of raw materials. In addition, fish caught in Russian waters, as I have already said, will be sent straight from the area of the catch to Russian processing facilities, rather than to foreign ports. Thus we will have fish for processing, rather than getting the processed product with added value from abroad.

Our fundamental task today is to create an effective integrated chain, from the catch, processing, transportation, to fish product sales. Unless this problem is solved, measures taken to improve the harvesting and processing of bioresources may yield poor results.

Incidentally, the fish and other seafood catch increased by 9.2% in January-April 2009.

Naturally, building processing capacities and developing logistics and sales will be a job for business. The state will only take action within its duty of responsibility, and also form the appropriate stimulus and support measures.

What are these measures of support and stimulus? First, as part of the strategic Federal Target Programme, fishing terminals and seaports must be modernised. These sites are federal property. I expect that the suppliers of fuel and other vital services will simultaneously put forward their plans to make the port infrastructure more competitive.

Work to rebuild the hydraulic engineering installations for seven terminals in Vladivostok, Khasan, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Nevelsk, Makhachkala and Kaliningrad is planned to begin in 2009. Two billion roubles have been allocated to this in 2009.

Borrowing must be made more accessible to investors involved in the building and modernisation of fish processing plants. To that end, the budget has already allocated resources to subsidise the interest rates on loans. The overall amount of this is 253 million roubles.

The sector representatives also propose using other tools, including the pledge of parts of catch quotas. I ask the relevant authorities to set out their stance on this issue today.

Third, we are ready to consider the temporary removal of customs tariffs on the import to Russia of refrigeration and other equipment necessary for fish processing and storage. However, as in other sectors we will do this very carefully taking into account the interests of domestic producers.

Up to 90% of the cold storage facilities working in Russia today do not meet modern requirements. There is a very high degree of equipment deterioration: between 50%-70%.

Incidentally, it was announced today that from January 1, 2010 we will already to a great extent be functioning according to the customs agreements and procedures created by the Customs Union with Belarus and Kazakhstan. It is vital that we take this into account. Those commercial entities involved must definitely keep this in mind and act speedily.

And finally, we must not forget about small businesses. Extra support measures need to be worked out for small fisheries and fish processing plants. Small business could also be in a sound position in the future of industrial fish farming.

I suggest we discuss all this in more detail.