Sberbank and the Russian Fishery Company (RFC) have jointly agreed to finance the construction of four large freezing fish trawlers.
All-in-all eleven supertrawlers will be built for RFC with the first already completed field tests. Six more vessels are at various stages of build at Admiralty Shipyards in St Petersburg. The new agreement, worth US$400 million, will see a further four constructed.
The document was signed by the first deputy chair of the executive board of SberBank, Alexander Vedyakhin, and chair of the board of directors of Russian Fishery Company, Gleb Frank, during the Eastern Economic Forum held in Vladivostok on 2 – 4 September.
Gleb Frank hailed the signing a ‘milestone’. “The new vessels are called supertrawlers for a reason. Not only are they able to catch 60 thousand tonnes of fish per year but they efficiently process it,” he said.
“Unlike the existing vessels, the new ones are able to make products for the final markets – fillet and surimi. They are super sustainable – fresh water use is reduced to zero. A supertrawler’s carbon footprint is the lowest among fishing fleet vessels,” he added.
The companies are long-term partners and this is not their first agreement. “Apart from the new supertrawlers’ power and fishery efficiency, it is worth noting that they comply with the sustainability principles Sber is committed to,” added Alexander Vedyakhin.
