OREANDA-NEWS. May 28, 2010. The Government of Karelia has held a meeting on development of fishing activities at internal reservoirs of the Republic of Karelia. Head of the North-West Territorial Department of the Federal Fishery Agency Sergey Muraviev has taken part in the meeting. The First Assistant to the Prime Minister of the Government of the Republic of Karelia Alexander Kolesov chaired the meeting. Heads of the fishery branch, organizations of fish breeders and fishing industrialists of the republic, scientists and farmers have also attended the meeting.

The report on the current situation in fishery was delivered by the Minister of Agriculture, Fish Industry and Ecology of the Republic of Karelia Grigory Manuylov. Now the fish branch of the Republic of Karelia includes 349 organizations of all patterns of ownership which are carrying out activity at internal reservoirs of Karelia. Of them last year industrial fishery was carried out by 266 enterprises and sole proprietors. The basic trade reservoirs are Lake Onego, northern part of the Lake Ladoga, Lake Vodlozero, Topo-Pyaozersky reservoir storage, Lakes Vygozero, Syamozero, Ondozero.

Catch of fish on the industrial quota in fresh-water reservoirs has made 2644.0 tons, that is 158 tons, or 6% more than in 2008. Fishing brigades worked in all regions of the republic.

In 2009 in territory of the Republic of Karelia there operated 45 fish-breeding farms. The aggregate number of employees of these farms makes 607 people. The monthly average wages at the trout enterprises, according to the Karelian State Statistics Service have made 16068 roubles per worker.

Last year within the scope of the departmental target program Development of Trout-Breeding in the Republic of Karelia for the Period trough 2010 it was planned to breed 10.5 thousand tons of uneven-aged trout. Actually trout-breeding farms in 2009 have bred 12950.3 tons of uneven-aged fish, including 8765.6 tons of commodity fish. In comparison with 2008, the volume of bred fish in 2009 has increased by 753.1 tons or by 6.2%. The structure of the bred fish has changed: besides caged lake trout (96.5% to the total amount of the bred uneven-aged fish) in 2009 in Karelia fish breeders raised Siberian white salmon (0.8%), Baltic whitefish (2.3%) and lake char (0.4%).

In 2009 all users of water biological resources of the Republic of Karelia have transferred 26 million roubles to the federal and republican budgets, of them 20,8 million roubles – to the budget of the Republic of Karelia, that is 1.7 times more than in 2008.

Obvious successes of the branch in Karelia were pointed out in his statement by the Head of the North-West Territorial Department of the Federal Fishery Agency Sergey Muraviev. In his opinion, activity of the Head of the Republic and the Government aimed at development of fish breeding is worth implementation of the requirement of the President of Russia D.Medvedev concerning support of food safety of the country. In the next years the state task to produce 80% of food from raw material of of home manufacture should be completed. and the fish branch is on the edge of this process.

According to Sergey Muraviev, Karelia is a unique region with lots of reservoirs suitable for fish-breeding. He has appraised the republic's potential for production of caged fish as 500,000 tons a year. He has also emphasized, that it is very much possible to achieve this result by joint efforts of the authorities and business of the republic, federal authorities. In particular, the decision of meeting included the item on development of the Program of Development of the Fishing Industry of the republic for the period through 2020. Karelia will become the first region where such program of the state will be created and implemented, and other regions will learn by our experience.