Russia resumes sturgeon caviar exports to Europe

Yahoo News 7 Feb 11;

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia has resumed sturgeon caviar exports to the European Union after a nine-year ban, a fisheries watchdog said Monday.

Russia has decided to allow exports to Europe of up to 150 kg (330 lbs) of black caviar from farmed fish as "a symbolic volume," said Alexander Savelyev, a spokesman for the Federal Fisheries Agency.

"The goal is to break the ice which has formed over the past nine years when not a single permit was issued for exports of the black caviar from Russia," said Savelyev.

Fearing extinction of sturgeon prized for its caviar eggs Russia had banned exports of black caviar in 2002. The move however had encouraged poaching as well as illegal exports to Europe through Turkey and the Causasus.

"An attentive European wouldn't understand this news," Savelyev said.

"He is used to seeing cans of Russian caviar. They didn't disappear anywhere. That was illegal import from Russia."

Savelyev said he foresaw caviar export growth in the future. Several fish farms already operate in the Kaluga, Rostov, Astrakhan, and Novosibirsk regions.

"We expect a lot of farmed caviar in a year or two," he told AFP, adding Russia could produce up to 200 tonness of caviar a year for a 350-tonne market.

Russia to export 2.5 tonnes of caviar to EU: watchdog
Yahoo News 16 Feb 11;

MOSCOW (AFP) – Russia expects to export at least 2.5 tonnes of sturgeon caviar to the European Union this year after lifting a nine-year ban on such sales, the fisheries watchdog said Wednesday.

The world's second-largest official producer of caviar after Iran said earlier this month that it would resume EU sales of black caviar from farmed fish, sending a 150-kilogramme (330-pound) test shipment to Europe.

Russia banned the harvest of sturgeon caviar in 2006 to help fight overfishing. Caviar production resumed in specially designed farms in 2010.

The head of the Federal Fisheries Agency said Wednesday that Russia expected to send 2.5 tonnes "or more" of the premium delicacy to Europe this year, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.

The report provided no export figures to other countries.

In 2010, Russia and three other former Soviet republics set quotas allowing for the export of three tonnes of sturgeon caviar between them.

The decision was reached to help fight poachers, who were flooding the black market with illegally-produced caviar.