In the first reading, the Parliament supported draft laws No. 8119 and No. 9545, developed by the BRDO together with the Ministry of Agrarian Policy and the State Fisheries Agency.
What do the draft laws introduce?
Law No. 9545 “On Ensuring the Traceability of Aquatic Bioresources and/or Products Produced from Aquatic Bioresources” implements EU regulations into Ukrainian legislation: No. 1224/2009 – on ensuring the traceability of aquatic bioresources, No. 1005/2008 – aimed at combating illegal, unaccountable, uncontrolled fishing and 1380/2013 – defines the main provisions of the Common Fisheries Policy of the EU (Common Fisheries Policy, CFP).
The draft law will help:
- launch an electronic system of traceability of the origin of aquatic biological resources and products produced from aquatic biological resources;
- fight against illegal fishing with the help of electronic tools, such as consignment notes, specialized for the fishing industry, and logbooks of fishing activities, the logbook of the subject of aquaculture, the formation of batches of aquatic bioresources;
- introduce certificates of origin, catch and re-export of aquatic biological resources for customs clearance.
Draft law No. 8119 “On Attracting Investments in the Development of the Fisheries Industry”, developed within the framework of the USAID Agrarian and Rural Development Program – AGRO project, will help:
- regulate the issue of the use of fish farming water objects for aquaculture and special commodity fisheries and to conduct transparent auctions for this purpose;
- use land plots near fisheries water bodies for the placement of temporary structures and equipment necessary for the implementation of investment contracts;
- introduce contractual legal relations between the state and business to stimulate investment in the fishing industry;
- introduce control and monitoring of the results of implementation of investment contracts, by submitting reports on the fulfilment of contract conditions.
Why is this important?
The fishing industry of Ukraine has a large and still unfulfiled potential. The implementation of the provisions of the draft laws will allow to achieve:
- transparency and control in fisheries;
- increase in investments in the industry;
- emergence of new jobs;
- increasing the economic potential and competitiveness of Ukrainian aquatic biological resources.
We call on people’s deputies to support these important changes!