Russia's Federal Agency for Fishery may go over to electronic document turnover in 2022 - VARPE

Russia's Federal Agency for Fishery (Rosrybolovstvo) may go over to electronic document turnover starting from 2022, the All-Russian Association of Fisheries Enterprises, Entrepreneurs and Exporters (VARPE) said.

It will become possible after the adoption of a bill introducing electronic fishing journals and electronic permits, which was supported in the meeting of the government commission on legislative activities on Monday, the industry association said.

According to the press release, the transition of the fishing industry to digital document turnover was proposed by the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP) and the All-Russian Association of Fisheries Enterprises, Entrepreneurs and Exporters (VARPE) as an urgent measure to ensure the stability of the fishing industry during the pandemic. It will reduce the administrative costs of fisheries enterprises, entrepreneurs and exporters by 150 million rubes a year.

"The introduction of electronic document turnover in the industry is in line with the interests of fisheries enterprises and the supervisory bodies," German Zverev, chairman of the RSPP commission on fisheries and aquaculture and president of VARPE, was quoted as saying.

"Electronic document turnover will considerable boost the effectiveness of the work and will reduce the costs of businesses. There are situations when aviation needs to be used to deliver permits to vessels," Zverev said. He also said the tests of electronic fishing journals in 2018-2019 reduces the costs of fishery enterprises by 40% and the operational and administrative costs by 15%, and the period of time needed for filing administrative reports was reduced by one half. Fishery enterprises can use electronic fishing journals to provide electronically information on fishing, acceptance, shipping, transportation and storage of catch, and on the production of fish products.

A bill introducing electronic fishing journals and electronic permits was drafted by the Agriculture Ministry in 2018.