The FSB Border Guard Service warned fishing companies about the inadmissibility of using ships owned by foreigners to transport products. Only in the Northern Basin such transport accounts for about 70% of the entire fleet. The ban threatens the industry with additional logistics costs of 12 billion rubles. per year, which may affect the cost of the final product, market participants fear.

The fact that the frontier service of the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) began to notify fishermen about the inadmissibility of using transport ships owned by foreigners, told Kommersant in the All-Russian Association of Fishermen (VARPE). Previously, such requirements were not shown if the vessel had the right to fly under the Russian flag and it was operated by Russian persons under bareboat charter contracts (chartering a vessel without a crew). VARPE learned about the change in the position of the FSB from several enterprises of the Northern Basin. Last week, the president of VARPE, German Zverev, was informed about the problem in his letter by Sergey Tarusov, chairman of one of the largest mining companies of Kamchatka RK named after VI Lenin (80,000 tons of catch per year).

Fishing companies often own a limited fleet and conclude contracts for the delivery of catches from fishing areas, explains Herman Zverev. Due to the limited conditions and terms of storage of products, companies often find themselves, depending on the availability of the transport vessel in the right place, "Mr. Tarusov specified. At the same time, he notes, there is a clear shortage of supply in the maritime transport market. According to WWARP estimates, only in the Northern Basin foreigners own about 70% of the fleet with a total capacity of 22.5 thousand tons.

The exclusion of foreign vessels from the chain of transportation and reloading of products will lead to enormous losses of fish producers, including losses from stopping fishing and from possible damage to products, warns Sergei Tarusov.

According to German Zverev, the company that catches 100,000 tons of cod, haddock and capelin a year in the North, will have to spend $ 2 million more on logistics due to the ban. In addition, he continues, the urgent restructuring of logistics routes due to the inability to work with ships belonging to foreigners, during the peak of Putin's can cost the company up to $ 1 million. In general, the additional costs of the industry can reach 12 billion rubles. in a year, has counted mister Zverev. According to Sergei Tarusov, the increase in the cost of transportation services may affect the final price of products. It is impossible to replenish the market with Russian maritime transport today: a new fleet is not being built, and old ships are being written off, it follows from his letter.
Herman Zverev believes that the law "On Fisheries" does not contain an unambiguous ban on the use of ships belonging to foreign owners for transporting aquatic biological resources (FBGs).

In VARPE indicate that paragraph 10 of part 1 of Art. 1 of the law defines fishing as an activity for the search and extraction of aquatic biological resources (EBRD), for the acceptance, processing, transshipment, transportation, storage and unloading of catches, and the production of fish and other products from these FBGs on fishing fleet vessels. From the literal interpretation of this provision, it follows that the transportation of FBG refers to fishing, only if it is carried out during the harvest, according to the WARP.

In the opinion of the association, if the legislator wanted the transportation of FBD as a separate type of activity also related to fishing, then using the transactions would use not commas but "and" and "or" unions. But Managing Partner of the Criminal Code "Law and Business" Alexander Pakhomov calls the position of the WARAP spanned, and the argument - weak. Go to court with this argument would not make sense, the lawyer points out.

The FSB did not respond to a request from Kommersant. Rosrybolovstvo said that the issue was discussed at a meeting of the interdepartmental working group with the Border Service of the Russian FSB under the leadership of the deputy head of the service Mikhail Ivanik. Participants agreed to "work through the issue."