6th International Fishery Congress opens in Vladivostok.

VLADIVOSTOK, September 6 (Itar-Tass) -- The Sixth International
Fishery Congress opens in Vladivostok on Tuesday. This year's delegates
represent 13 Russian regions and 17 countries. Participants come from
Great Britain, Germany, Norway, the United States, Japan, the DPRK and
South Korea and other countries. Representatives from all Russian
fish-rich regions of the Far East as well as from the Murmansk, Astrakhan,
Rostov and Moscow regions and from Moscow and St. Petersburg have come to
discuss problems of fishery.
The opeining plenary session will be deveoted to modernisation f the
industry. The delegates will discuss a wide range of issues - improvement
of producing biological resources, the processing, transportation, and
management modernisation.
"Undoubtedly, this theme is very pressing for the fishing community.
Under the word 'modernisation" we mean not only improvement of fishing
instruments and vessels, but also the upgrading of the system itself,
including management and human resources," the Primorsky Territory Vice
Governor, Igor Uleisky, said earlier this week.
The forum's keynote speakers include Governor of the Primorsky
Territory Sergei Darkin, Russian fisheries agency chief Andrei Krainy,
representatives of the Federation Council, the State Duma and the World
Bank.
This year's congress will have three round tables: Ecology and Legal
Aspects of Responsible Fishery, Food Security: Markets, Producers and
State Regulation, and Aquaculture: Present and Future. On the closing day,
September 7, the congress will adopt a resolution.
The fishery congress has been held in Vladivostok since 2003. Most
often decisions taken at the forum become reflected in Russia's laws.
Thus, fishing companies raised repeatedly the issue of introducing
long-term quotas. As a result, in 2008 the Russian government introduced
ten-year fishing quotas.
Last year over 400 delegates from 15 countries, including Australia,
Great Britain, Germany, India, the U.S.A. and Japan, attended the congress
focusing on investments in Russia's fishing industry and operation of the
world fish market.