New sanitary and labelling requirements will take effect on October 1, 2010 in the Russian market, as the authorities seek to correct the poor quality of fish. The most important problem lies in the water content of frozen fish imports, which, in some cases, exceeds 50% of the product weight. The new regulation focuses on improving the quality of frozen fish, specifies the weight of glaze applied according to different categories of seafood, and the labelling of products.

Tests conducted in the laboratory showed that, in some cases, a product labelled as Pollock fillet was in fact made of pieces of Pollock mixed with ice. The government is working to develop new technical standards for seafood supposed to toughen requirements for quality products.

From January to March 2010, Russian exports of marine products increased by 59.6% compared to the first quarter of 2009 and totalled 474,800 tons, while imports increased by 10% to reach 286,300 tons.

Exports rose almost 60%

According to the Fisheries Agency (Rosrybolovstvo) releasing these figures, exports of fish captured in the Russian EEZ totalled 418,500 tonnes in the first quarter of this year; twice compared to the quantity captured from January to March 2009. They thus represented 88% of total exports.