A Russian parliament committee has called on authorities to strip fishing groups affiliated with Chinese or Korean companies of their quotas,
reported Russia Beyond the Headlines, citing the Russian business newspaper,
Kommersant.
According to
Kommersant, the state Duma committee on natural resources, nature management and ecology has appealed to the Federal Security Service (FSB) and the prosecutor-general?s office to put an end to unlawful activities of Chinese and Korean companies in Russia?s fishing waters and to strip legal entities affiliated with them of their fishing quotas.
The MPs have also called on the FSB Aleksandr Bortnikov and prosecutor general Yury Chayka to identify the companies found to be illegally fishing in Russia.
Their call was prompted by reports from representatives of Far Eastern companies that foreign owners were unwilling to part with their unlawfully obtained Russian assets, said
Kommersant.
It was after similar complaints that Pacific Andes International Holdings
was ordered to sell its Russian assets.
Pacific Andes has always denied having interests in Russian fisheries companies. However, it has been widely linked to companies that have recently been acquired by Russian Sea Catching, the new emerging powerhouse backed by oligarch Gennady Timchenko, which has
been buying up companies in the Russian Far East.
Russian Sea Catching is
said to be also eyeing Sakhalin Leasing Flot and Nakhodka Active Marine Fishery Base.
According to Kommersant, Pacific Andes still indirectly holds interests in four assets in Russia, but does not want to part with them at the prices put forward by Russian buyers. The ?seller?s asking price is simply out of proportion?, the head of the Russian federal fisheries agency Andrey Krayny told
Kommersant.
After Pacific Andes, Russian authorities started
taking a closer look at the involvement of South Korean companies in the Russian Far East, saying Korean companies are suspected of unlawfully controlling some 20 Russian fishing companies, which have quotas for catching 220,000 ? 250,000 metric tons of Alaska pollock, or 12-15% of the total Russian quota.
The Korean companies under scrutiny are SajoDaerim Corporation, Hansung Enterprise, and their subsidiaries. They are believed to have control over the following Russian companies: Orion, Oladon, Polluks, Daltransflot, Yantar, Tralkom, Ekarma Sakhalin, Kurilsky rassvet.
The other companies that FAS has concerns about ? Ussuri, Atika, Mikor, Alitet and Ayan ? are said to be controlled by HNS, Silla Co, KDF and Nordik.
These reports were made public by the head of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), Igor Artemyev. As the FAS did with Pacific Andes, Artemyev invited
Koreans to instead invest in Russia?s onshore processing sector. News has since emerged that South Korean companies plan to
invest up to $2 billion in the Russian Far East, although $1bn of that will be in a coal project.
More recently, Russia has also
claimed that US and Japanese companies hold illegal stakes in its fishing companies.
The Russian companies that
Kommersant has been able to reach either refused to comment on their links with Korean founders or said that there were no such links.
This is technically true. According to Interfax?s SPARK database, the majority of Korean founders stopped being shareholders in Russian companies late last year or early this year. In reality, however, most of those Russian companies are still controlled by Korean business though ?trustees?, said the newspaper.
On the other hand, said
Russia Beyond the Headline, there are Russian legal entities that are controlled by Korean companies. As in the case with Pacific Andes, FAS has invited them to divest their shares in the capital of the Russian companies, but said nothing had happened yet.
If nothing changes by Jan. 1, 2014, these companies will not have their fishing quotas extended, after which, under the Russian law, their quotas will return to the state and will be sold at an auction, said Krayny.
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