The Federal Agency for Fishery recognized the losses of shipyards for ₽42 billion

Shipyards' losses from the construction of fishing vessels reached 42 billion rubles. To solve the problem, a financial recovery program for shipbuilding enterprises may be needed,

The total loss of Russian shipyards from the construction of 105 vessels for catching fish and crab is “huge” and amounts to about 42 billion rubles, Ilya Shestakov, HEAD of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, told RBC in an interview.

The construction of 64 fishing and 41 crab vessels under the first stage of the investment quota program and crab auctions with investment obligations began in 2018. Of these vessels, five years later, by February, only 14 vessels were handed over to customers: ten fishing and four crab.

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According to Shestakov, the remaining 37 crab fishermen will be completed within five years, that is, no later than 2027. But with the construction of the fishing fleet "there are serious problems." “They started before the sanctions, and to some extent they can be justified by the [COVID-19] pandemic. But to a greater extent, the difficulties were associated with the lack of necessary competencies at the shipyards at the initial stage of the program, and they had difficulties in building a fishing fleet on commercial orders in a short time and at a fixed price, ”explained the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries. Shipbuilding enterprises took orders, but the contractual obligations with the fishermen “were written badly and miscalculated”: “Now the shipyards are declaring huge losses on fishing vessels - about 42 billion rubles,” Shestakov added.

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At the same time, according to the information of the department, in order to get the vessels, some fishermen, despite the concluded agreements, go towards the shipyards and agree on a change in cost or an extension of the construction period. To solve the problem of losses, it may be necessary to introduce "some kind of financial recovery program" for shipyards, Shestakov believes. But the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC) will deal with this directly, he notes. RBC sent inquiries to the press services of the Ministry of Industry and Trade and USC.

According to the head of the Federal Agency for Fisheries, the fleet modernization program is needed, among other things, to solve the problem of aging employees in the fleet and attract new personnel to the industry. Now approximately 70% of the crew members of fishing vessels are over 50 years old. “Working in the field is hard. Fishermen go to sea for three months or more, and living conditions on old ships are, to put it mildly, not very comfortable. It is clear that young specialists after graduation are unlikely to choose such a profession,” Shestakov notes. At the same time, in the fishing companies that received new vessels, “there is no staff turnover,” and the competition for vacancies is high, the official says.

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The state program aimed at modernizing the fishing fleet, developing fish processing enterprises and coastal infrastructure was proposed in 2015. “In fact, we gave the fishermen quotas in exchange for leveling the cost of building ships for them in RUSSIA and loading domestic shipyards,” recalls Shestakov.

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The first stage of the distribution of investment quotas began in 2017: at that time, enterprises were allocated 20% of the total allowable catch of herring and pollock under the obligation to build new fishing vessels at Russian shipyards and build processing plants. In 2019, for the first time in 15 years, crab auctions were held in Russia: 50% of crab harvesting quotas were put up for auction, and the enterprises that received them were required to build new crab fishing vessels.

The second stage of the investment quota reform is scheduled for 2023: it is planned to distribute 20% of the total allowable catch of pollock and herring in the Far East, as well as the remaining 50% of quotas for crab fishing, at auctions.