Russian fishing fleets steering into digital future

The Russian fishery sector is vigorously implementing electronic systems such as the Electronic Fishing Log and the “Mercury” Federal Information System for electronic veterinary certification. The related legislation for electronic systems in the fishery industry is also showing a steady progress, according to a report of Russia’s Federal Agency for Fisheries at a dedicated conference on 19 November current.

The respective draft of the federal law “On introducing amendments to particular regulatory acts of the Russian Federation aimed at improving legislation on fisheries and conservation of aquatic biological resources” has been already worked out. The draft law provides for countrywide implementation of the Electronic Fishing Log. (The document in question is placed on the official information portal of the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA).)

After several years of pilot and field testing the Electronic Fishing Log has now proved to be ready for exploitation.

Electronic veterinary certificates

In order to combine the Electronic Fishing Log and the “Mercury” Federal Information System programmers have developed a data transfer chain from the Log to the Industry Monitoring System and then to the Mercury system. Despite some problems at the closing stage of their mutual enrichment with updated data, the systems are generally integrated well enough. As a result of data processing the chain will automatically issue electronic veterinary certificates.