OREANDA-NEWS. January 12, 2010. In 2009 Murmansk Fishery port received 255.000 tons of fish – 68.000 tons more than in 2008. In all the port handled 1027 vessels and more than 13.100 railway carriages in course of the year, the port’s web pages read.

2009 showed that we are ready for even larger amounts of deliveries, says assistant to the port’s director Anton Artemyev. - Under the existing conditions we can handle more than 30.000 tons per month, and we are fully ready for the spring fishing season.

In December Murmansk Fishery Port handled 12.000 tons of fish products, which is 1500 tons more than in the same period in 2008.

A Russian law on fisheries demanding that all fish caught in Russian economic zone shall be delivered in Russian ports came into effect on January 1st 2009. Until then half of the caught fish (more than 1,5 million tons) had been delivered abroad, thus depriving Russian costal settlements of workplaces, the Russian treasury of incomes and Russian consumers of fish.

At the same time, another law lessening the tax burden on fishing companies when making port calls in Russia was activated. The law removed taxes for fishing vessels repaired or modernized abroad. Until then, ship owners have had to pay value added tax and import duties on all new equipment when calling a Russian port. Consequently, a significant part of the vessels registered for example in Murmansk, never went to that port, but used ports in Norway as bases instead.