The funds received by the budget from auctions for commercial fishing will help to stock water bodies
27 January 2025 17:49
For the first time in history, the State Budget of Ukraine received funds for stocking water bodies from auctions for commercial fishing. Previously, only local budgets received this money. This was announced by the Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine Vitaliy Koval, "Komersant Ukrainian" reports.
According to him, the new budget program “Measures for the introduction of aquatic bioresources into fishery water bodies” has already received UAH 3.38 million as a result of the auction for the sale of rights to special use of aquatic bioresources in 2025.
Vitaliy Koval called it a “landmark event for Ukrainian aquaculture.”
“These funds will become the foundation for restoring fish populations, increasing fish productivity, biodiversity conservation and biological reclamation. In addition, it will stimulate the development of fish stock production in aquaculture, which is an important step for the qualitative renewal of the raw material base of industrial fisheries,” Vitaliy Koval emphasized.
The Minister also explained that this is one of the consistent steps taken by the Ministry as part of its import substitution policy. The products purchased in Ukraine by state institutions should be of Ukrainian origin. This should strengthen the domestic market, provide employment in the industry and support national producers.
What is known about auctions for commercial fishing
In total, 308 successful auctions were held in 2024, as a result of which the total value of lots increased by about 34% – from UAH 38.15 million to UAH 50.9 million. So far, commercial fishermen have actually paid UAH 49.6 million to local budgets under the concluded agreements (before the reform, the amount of revenues for special use was UAH 13-15 million per year).
In 2025, the State Fisheries Agency will continue to hold auctions. For example, on January 21, the electronic trading system Prozorro.Sale published 22 announcements of auctions for commercial fishing for aquatic bioresources in the Dnipro-Bug estuarine system, the Berezan estuary, the Danube River, the lower Dniester River (with lakes, Turunchuk arm) and the Dniester estuary.
Business entities that plan to fish on an industrial scale and have declared the right to do so by submitting an appropriate electronic declaration may submit their applications for participation in the auction until 20:00 on January 28, 2025. The lots will be drawn on January 29, 2025. Another 10 lots for commercial fishing in the same region will be drawn on February 3, 2025.
What about the stocking of Ukrainian water bodies
In 2024, almost 11 million specimens of valuable fish species were released into Ukrainian water bodies, including European grayling, Danube salmon, brook trout, carp, silver carp, white carp, etc. This was reported by the State Fisheries Agency.
In particular, a unique stocking campaign funded by the state budget made it possible to replenish the Carpathian region’s water bodies with more than 283,000 specimens of salmonid fish, which is 11% more than in the previous year. Thus, for the first time since Ukraine’s independence, 8783 specimens of Red Book grayling fry, grown at the Lopushno trout farm of the State Agency for Fisheries, were introduced into the water bodies of Transcarpathia. In addition, the water bodies of the Tisza basin in Chernivtsi and Zakarpattia regions were enriched with 21,400 specimens of the Red Book Danube salmon (chub). At the same time, the water bodies of four regions – Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Zakarpattia, and Bukovyna – were enriched with 253,000 brook trout fry.
