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MOSCOW, Aug 26 Against the backdrop of the beginning of the discharge of weakly radioactive water from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant, the Russian market is protected from Japanese fish: it comes in very small volumes and these are premium species, it is not available in retail, said Ilya Bereznyuk, managing partner of Agro&Food Communications.
“How the situation around the nuclear power plant will develop is unclear, even scientists differ in these forecasts. But as for the Russian market, it is protected from Japanese fish, it comes here very little, and mainly in the premium segment. We ourselves export a lot to Japan, and we import much less — accordingly, for an ordinary consumer, all this will not play any role,» Bereznyuk said.
He recalled that Russia's imports from Japan of hydrobionts, fish products, crustaceans, molluscs and other fish products make up an insignificant share of its Russian imports in general — about 192 tons last year, and basically these deliveries concerned only ultra-expensive HoReCa (public catering and hotel business — ed. .). «Big chain retail and retail in general is not affected at all — perhaps it could be present in expensive boutique stores, for example, yellowfin tuna,» the agency's interlocutor noted.
Fukushima-1 operator TERSO on Thursday began discharging water from the station into the ocean, after diluting it with sea water. The issue of water disposal methods has been considered since 2013. Among others, options were discussed to mix it with cement and concrete underground, to separate hydrogen by electrolysis, and others.
The Federal Agency for Fishery reported on Thursday that the discharge of water used to cool the reactors of the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant does not cause concern, and Russian ships are not fishing in the discharge area. Meanwhile, a little later on the same day, it became known that the Rosselkhoznadzor was introducing a regime of enhanced control of fish products from Japan in terms of radiological indicators, and did not exclude restrictions on supplies if such products exceed the maximum allowable level of radionuclides. On Friday, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan said that tests for the concentration of tritium in ocean water after the release of weakly radioactive water from the Fukushima-1 nuclear power plant were within normal limits, no problems were found.
According to the Federal Agency for Fishery. over the past 3 years, the volume of imports of fish products from Japan to Russia has fallen by 93%. So, in 2020, 2.9 thousand tons of products were imported, in 2021 — 1.4 thousand tons, and at the end of 2022, the volume of imports decreased significantly and amounted to only 192 tons of products. In January-July 2023, the volume of fish and fish products imported from Japan amounted to 112 tons (minus 29% compared to 2021). And on average, the annual catch of fish by Russian fishermen is about 5 million tons per year.