"In 2009, the fisheries industry reported goods results," Mr Zubkov said, opening the meeting. He said that in the outgoing year the industry was guided by a newly approved normative groundwork - the strategy for developing the fisheries sector until 2020, and the special federal programme for the development of the industry until 2013.
"For the first time in the recent period everybody has felt the effect of the economic measures taken to support fisheries companies," Mr Zubkov said. The government has cut rates for using water and bio-resources 6.5-fold and introduced a single agricultural tax covering small operations.
"As part of anti-crisis measures, the government has allocated over one billion roubles to subsidise interest rates on loans for material and technical supplies to ships, and construction and upgrading of the fleet and processing equipment," Mr Zubkov added.
"All this enabled fishermen to show good results," Mr Zubkov said, summing up the industry's performance in 2009. In particular, output in the first 10 months of the year reached 3.2 million tonnes, a 9.7% rise year-on-year, while the production of ready-made fish products increased by 3.2% to reach 3.3 million tonnes.
Priority goals for the next year, Mr Zubkov stressed, are further development of processing and transport infrastructure, making more loans available for fisheries, lifting excessive administrative barriers, and improving the normative groundwork. "We have recently discussed all these questions with top officials. Today I signed a tasking list following the meeting," he said.
As boundary lines of Russian sea ports were discussed, Mr Zubkov reminded the audience of the need to include so-called "port stations" (fish delivery points) within the sea ports of Arkhangelsk, Astrakhan, Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky. Appropriate government executive orders are in the final stages of drafting.
The meeting also examined regulations governing the economic activity of ethnic minorities in the North, Siberia and the Far East. Following a discussion it was decided to draw a clearer line between such concepts as "traditional fishing" and "commercial catching of bioresources" to regularise fishing in these regions.